DHAKA: Authorities evacuated Hotel Sundarban, a posh hotel in Dhaka, after an adjacent road sank, leading to cracks on the walls of the facility, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.
“By now we have evacuated everyone from the hotel as cracks developed in several parts of the building ... it appears the structure is at risk of collapse,” fire service director Shakil Newaz said.
Residents in the neighbourhood said they heard a loud sound and later saw a road adjacent to the hotel sinking into the earth.
TV channels also showed some makeshift tea stalls, electric polls and rickshaws sinking into the ground were or being washed away by the water leaking from the hotel’s pipeline which burst following the collapse.
“It was raining in the morning ... we saw a portion of the boundary wall collapsing and the street beside it subsiding after a big bang,” a witness told before a TV camera.
Fire service officials, however, said they found no report of casualties. They suspected groundwork for a high-rise building at an adjacent plot could have led to the wall caving in.
Newly elected mayors of Dhaka North and Dhaka South city corporations, Annisul Huq and Sayeed Khokon, rushed to the scene to gauge the situation and asked authorities to cut off the supply of power, gas and water in the area as part of extra security measures.
“The area has been cleared and no guest is there inside the hotel, we have asked the hotel workers to evacuate as well,” Huq said.
Khokon added that “our first duty is to ensure extra security measures in order to save the lives and valuables of the people in the area and we will take every possible step in this regard.”
