1st LD Writethru: Hotel fire kills 11, injures 70 in Pakistan's Karachi

At least 11 people were killed and 70 others injured when fire erupted in a hotel in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Monday morning, hospital sources said.

Seemi Jamali, medical superintendent (MS) at Jinnah Hospital where the injured people and bodies were shifted, said that 11 corpses have been placed in the hospital's mortuary and will be handed over to the relatives after identification.

She said that the killed included four women and the injured included some foreigners. However, she did not reveal their nationality.

The MS said that the death toll is feared to rise as 30 among the injured people are in critical condition.

She said that most of the casualties happened due to suffocation.

Saqib Memon, a senior police official in the city, said that the fire has been put off, but search and rescue operation in the hotel is going on.

Chief fire officer Tehseen said that the fire erupted in the hotel's kitchen and later engulfed the ground floor of the building. Enditem