When fire engulfed the Flourish Stay hotel in Malviya Nagar on Wednesday morning, Riyazuddin did not wait for instructions. The owner of a mattress shop across the street began pulling stock off his shelves and laying it on the road below the burning five-storey building – a makeshift safety net for whoever could jump.

“As soon as the fire broke out in the hotel, we laid out the mattresses from our shop onto the road,” he recounts. 

His family, originally from Narangpur village in Amroha district, has made Delhi their home for nearly half a century. On Wednesday, they may have made it a home worth returning to for several others.

“Every single sheet used to cover the bodies retrieved from the building also came from our shop. We even used our own sheets to carry the injured out of the hotel. We laid out more than 21 mattresses on the ground below. We suffered a loss of around Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. Seven or eight people jumped onto those mattresses, and every single one of them survived. They sustained minor injuries, but their lives were saved. Among those who jumped were two women and the rest were men.”

Riyazuddin has run his shop here for 45 years, long before the hotel arrived five years ago. A cement warehouse earlier stood where the hotel now stands. He had arrived early on Wednesday, as usual. “This incident occurred sometime between 8 am and 8:30 am. At that time, I was right here at my shop. Suddenly, sounds of commotion and shouting broke out. We looked out and saw that a fire had started. We immediately called the fire brigade… The fire brigade arrived an hour late, but they still managed to carry out significant rescue operations. Had they arrived a little sooner, perhaps the death toll would not have been so high.”

His son, Arman Mansuri, worked alongside him through the chaos. “Our shop used to be packed to the brim; today, it stands completely empty. Every single compartment, every single shelf – there is absolutely nothing left in them. I didn’t stop… I simply grabbed whatever items I could and handed them over to help save lives. These rescue efforts continued for approximately three to four hours.”

By the time the smoke cleared, 21 people were dead. Questions have since mounted about the capital’s preparedness for fire incidents and about the delay in the fire department’s response in the latest incident. 

‘We entered the building’

The fire had broken out at approximately 9 am; guests trapped inside had smashed windowpanes and leapt from the upper floors in desperation, while others retreated to bathrooms to escape the smoke, only to succumb to asphyxiation. Locals led the rescue.

Mohammad Afzal, a local resident, received a call at around 8:30 am. “We immediately rushed from our home and called upon our cousins to join us. It was a massive blaze; we first alerted the fire brigade and the police, and then, a group of 8 to 10 of us entered the building alongside the police. Before going inside, we retrieved mattresses from a nearby shop, laid them out on the street below, and urged the people trapped inside to jump onto them. We helped seven or eight people jump down from the upper floors, though one of them did sustain a broken leg.”

Inside, conditions were dire. “The visibility was zero; the power had gone out, and it was pitch black everywhere. We made our way inside by using the flashlights on our mobile phones. We had to break down doors to pull people out, and among them were several who had already perished. We also administered CPR to about ten people on the scene. We even came across one couple who were trapped inside a bathroom; they were found embracing each other, both deceased.”

The hotel primarily served patients’ attendants from nearby Max Hospital – people who had traveled far to be near a sick relative.

The dead

Delhi Police confirmed that over 40 individuals were evacuated from the premises. Of the 39 patients brought to Max Hospital, 18 were already dead on arrival.

Among the 21 dead were 10 Indian nationals and 11 foreign nationals – nine from African nations and two from Turkmenistan. 

At AIIMS Trauma Center, the deceased recorded include 40-year-old Roland, a female resident of Liberia, and 40-year-old Tshipamba Achil of Mozambique. At Max Hospital, 18 deaths were recorded, of which 12 remain unidentified. Among the deceased foreigners identified were Tulkinov Khapumeium, 40, and Makhpirat Khon Kochkarova, 75.

Meanwhile, the Indian victims included an entire family from Gurugram: 48-year-old Vivek Agarwal, his 45-year-old wife Tarjani, their daughters Jubisha (alias Angel), 20, and Wariya (alias Pearl), 15, and Vivek’s 52-year-old mother, Kamala Devi. Three relatives who had arrived from Rajasthan that very morning – Vivek’s father's brother and brothers-in-law – also died alongside them.

Ajay Gupta, Tarjani’s maternal uncle, said the family had come to visit Vivek’s father, who was undergoing treatment at Max Hospital and remains in the ICU. “Furthermore, three other individuals – relatives of the family – had also arrived in Delhi from Rajasthan earlier that morning to meet them. No one is left in our family.” 

Among the over 20 injured was Vishal Kumar, 29, who broke the glass of his room window and jumped. He fractured his lower spine and required stitches on his hands. His bill at the hospital stands at Rs 92,000, as yet unpaid. 

His brother Sagar rushed from Ludhiana the moment he heard. Their brother-in-law Vijay Kumar said, “We are overjoyed that he survived. As for the hospital bill, we will pay it. We are middle-class people, after all. Money comes and goes; what truly mattered was that he survived.”

Complaining about the media is easy. Why not do something to make it better? Support independent media and subscribe to Newslaundry today.