Sonali Tiwary
At least nine people, including a child, died in a fire at a hotel in central Kolkata in the early hours of Wednesday 19 August, the second such deadly blaze in West Bengal within days.
The fire broke out around 2 a.m. on the second floor of Sikha Inn, inside Florence Mansion on Mirza Ghalib Street in the New Market police station area, according to The Hindu. About 60 people were rescued from the five-storey building, which houses several guesthouses and inns mostly used by Bangladeshi visitors to the city. Officials said five of the dead were Bangladeshi nationals, two were from Bihar and West Bengal, and two were yet to be identified. A four-year-old child was among those killed.
The incident came two days after a fire in the pilgrimage town of Tarapith, in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, killed nine people, raising questions about safety standards in smaller hotels and guesthouses. State ministers visited the Kolkata site after the blaze.
Fires in budget hotels and guesthouses have repeatedly exposed gaps in enforcement of fire-safety rules in India. Many such buildings operate in older structures with narrow staircases, limited exits and no functional fire-suppression systems. Emergency responders often face difficulty reaching upper floors quickly in congested urban areas, as seen in other recent fire emergencies and evacuations.
West Bengal has seen a cluster of fatal fires in recent years. The repeated pattern — multiple deaths in a single overnight blaze — has prompted calls from safety advocates for stricter licensing, mandatory fire audits and better evacuation routes in low-cost accommodations that cater to travellers and pilgrims.
Investigators have not yet released a final cause for the Mirza Ghalib Street fire. Police and fire officials have said the rescue operation involved multiple teams working through the night to bring people down from the upper floors. The deaths have renewed attention on the condition of small hotels across Indian cities, where demand from domestic and cross-border travellers often outpaces oversight. Authorities in Kolkata have said inspections of similar establishments would be reviewed following the incident.
