‘Her head was on his shoulder, they lay motionless’: Rescuers recall Delhi’s deadly fire
Flourish Stay B&B was popular among foreign medical tourists. Eyewitnesses said they saw people jumping from windows in a desperate attempt to escape.
Government sources said the building comprised a basement, a ground floor, plus four floors. (Express photo by Gajendra Yadav) A couple lying in a bathroom, the woman’s head resting on her husband’s shoulder. Charred bodies in the basement. Rescuers found harrowing scenes inside Flourish Stay B&B in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar when they rushed in to pull out guests from a raging fire inside the premises.
As flames tore through the hotel, chaos erupted as guests began jumping from upper floors to escape the inferno. Outside, local residents rushed to help, breaking locked windows and laying out mattresses on the road.
Wasim Raza, a resident of Hauz Rani in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar, said several people were trapped in the basement and he, along with Delhi Police personnel, helped cut through an iron window grill to reach them. “There were two rooms in the basement,” he said.
Inside the building, he said the scenes were harrowing. “We pulled out the charred body of a young woman. There was also a person in a wheelchair,” Raza said.
“In a ground-floor bathroom, I found a foreign couple lying motionless, the woman’s head resting on her husband’s shoulder. I gave CPR to around 10 people during the rescue. Anyone I saw lying on the floor, I tried to help. The scenes were heartbreaking,” he added.
Raza said he also found several Nigerian nationals unconscious inside bathrooms on the first and second floors and helped bring them out of the building.
A security staff member at Max Hospital, Raza sustained injuries during the rescue operation. He said his feet were cut after he stepped on shattered glass while moving through the debris.
Mansoor, who runs a construction business in the area, said the fire appeared to have started on the first floor. “People started jumping from the first floor. Then they began jumping from the second, third and fourth floors. We brought mattresses and placed them below so they could land on them,” he said.
Mansoor added that he threw a rope from his house toward the building in an attempt to help those trapped inside. “A woman tried to catch it, but she couldn’t hold on and fell to the ground,” he said.
Ishrar Khan, 40, described the horrifying scene. “I was helping some of the victims, and their skin just peeled off. It was horrifying. They all were screaming.”
Rescue efforts were also hampered by locked doors and windows, he claimed. “The windows wouldn’t slide open, so we used hammers to break them and rescued seven people from the basement…,” he added.
Ishrar said he then got into the building and helped move guests to the roof, from where they jumped onto mattresses.
Locals wrapped victims in bedsheets to douse the fire
Armaan, 27, owner of Munsoorei Cottons, provided mattresses and bedsheets for the rescue effort. “I gave 20 mattresses and 24 bedsheets. Locals wrapped the victims in double-layer bedsheets and got them out,” he said.
Two other residents, Advocate Mohammad Afzal, 35, a lawyer at Saket court, and Amir Khan, 31, who runs a water supply shop, said they reached the spot around 9 am.
“The fire had spread by then… we started spreading mattresses so that people could jump,” they said. At the same time, they called Max Hospital for ambulances and medical assistance.
No survivor on ground floor
The men eventually managed to get inside the building and said no one survived on the ground floor. “The moment we entered the building, we came across two bodies,” said Afzal.
“Everything was charred on the first floor too. The second and third floors escaped damage but people had died of smoke… There was a lot of smoke… and glass everywhere,” they said.
The men carried the victims on their shoulders and administered CPR to 10 people.
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