FIFTEEN Filipinos were killed in a fire at a hotel in the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region that killed 21 people and injured dozens of others on Friday (February 5), the governor of Erbil told a local media network.
While Reuters reported the initial death toll at 17, an Al Jazeera report said those killed were at least 21 people, and that 15 of them were Filipinos.
The Al Jazeera report said that the Governor of Erbil, Nawzad Hadi, told Rudow news agency on Friday that the fire at the Capitol hotel on Gulan street had killed at least 21 people, including foreigners.
“Hadi told reporters at the scene that 15 of the victims were Filipino citizens who worked at a massage centre at the hotel,” the report from Al Jazeera said.
Some of the other victims were from Iraq and Palestine, Hadi said
Reuters said that according to officials, the fire started in the basement of the building and later spread to the spa area.
The hotel manager said the dead included foreigners most of whom were Filipinos
The manager of the Capitol Hotel told local TV station Rudaw TV the fire had started in a massage parlor next door and that some of those killed were from the Philippines, according to Reuters.
Civil Defense Brigadier Soran Hamza described the incident:
“We were informed at 4.10 this evening of a fire at Capitol Hotel and as in any similar incident, civil defence team rushed immediately to the scene and managed to put the fire under control,” Hamza said.
“Seventeen people were killed and we have wounded too. Members of our team suffocated with the smoke. To the best of my knowledge most of the dead were from the Philippines,” he added.
The cause of the fire was not clear, but Erbil Governor Nawzad Hadi said an electrical fault was suspected.
Rawand Hawezi, a doctor at the Erbil emergency hospital, told Rudaw that they had received the bodies of seven of the victims.
At least 10 firefighters were also taken to the hospital for treatment after suffering from intense smoke inhalation
Many foreign workers came to Kurdistan after 2003, when the region experienced an oil fueled economic boom, inviting comparisons with the Gulf emirate of Dubai. (with reports from Reuters and Al Jazeera)