Dubai: Authorities have launched an investigation into a deadly fire at a hotel that sent some desperate guests plunging to their deaths in Sulaimaniyah, northeast of Baghdad.
The five-storey Soma Hotel did not have fire escapes, authorities said. At least 30 people were killed in the incident. Almost half of those killed were foreigners.
A Dubai-based company, Terraseis, which conducts geological surveys for the oil industry, told Gulf News that 8 of its employees were killed in the fire.
A Terraseis spokesman told Gulf News on Saturday that the victims were from South Africa, Australia, Canada, Venezuela Bolivia, Ecuador, Indonesia and the United Kingdom.
"It is a terrible tragedy," the spokesman said. "We are now going to care for the families of the victims, this is our top priority."
Terraseis was working on a project in Kurdistan as a subcontractor of a Dutch oil exploration company, he added. The project has been suspended until further notice.
The fire began late Thursday night and lasted well into Friday morning as firefighters battled the deadly blaze in the five-storey Soma Hotel for nearly five hours.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene in which smoke filled the hallways and billowed out of the windows, forcing some hotel guests to jump from the upper floors in a desperate attempt to avoid the flames.
One man who was visiting friends at the hotel, Mariwan Asaad, described seeing flames and smoke filling the corridors on the third floor, forcing him to stumble blindly in search of a way out. Through the open doorway of one room he saw a man lying on the floor, dead from smoke inhalation.
"I entered the room and threw myself from the window. I broke my legs. The pain was so great that I lost consciousness. I found myself in the hospital," he said, speaking just before going into the operating room for surgery.
The owner of another hotel next door said the fire reached his building but his hotel workers managed to douse the flames.
"Thick smoke was going out from all the hotel windows. I saw at least three people jumping from the fifth story," Hawri Hassan said.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation, and the lack of fire escapes contributed to the high death toll, said the head of the city's fire department, Brig. Yadgar Mohammad Mustafa.
The Kurdistan Regional Government said that 14 of the dead were foreigners. Kurdish Prime Minister Barham Saleh said the government was working with embassies to notify the next of kin.
The prime minister said he had ordered a review of all fire safety measures in public buildings in the city and the region.
"I have ordered an immediate investigation into the accident to establish the causes of the fire and assess the emergency procedures that followed. We will spare no effort in making sure such tragedies do not occur in the future," he said.
The chief of police, Brig. Gen. Najim Al Din Qadir, said the blaze was sparked by an electrical short.
The top health official in Sulaimaniyah, Rekwt Mohammad, said one of the dead was a pregnant woman.
With input from agencies
