By: BAGHDAD
Source: TheDailyGleaner
A Canadian was among 28 people killed in a fierce blaze that forced some victims to jump to their deaths as flames swept through a hotel in a northern Iraqi oil boomtown.
The five-story hotel allegedly lacked fire escapes.
The chief of police in Sulaimaniyah, Brig. Gen. Najim-al-Din Qadir, said the fire in the Soma Hotel, which began late Thursday, was caused by an electrical short.
The police chief said 14 foreigners were among the 28 who lost their lives in the fire. Four women and four children were among the dead.
The Canadian killed was working for Terraseis, the Dubai-based company confirmed in a statement. The Canadian's name has not been released.
The company said eight of its employees were killed in the fire.
Terraseis specializes in acquiring geophysical data in challenging geographic, economical and political environments and was working in Iraq on a contract from Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc., spokeswoman Phoebe Buckland said.
"It's a tragic, tragic situation and we are doing everything we can to help Terraseis at this time," she said.
"It's obviously extremely sad for the company and their focus right now is on speaking to the families of the affected and their employees."
Using the passports of the deceased, Iraqi authorities have determined that the dead included people from Cambodia, Bangladesh, Canada, Australia, Ecuador, South Africa, Britain, Lebanon, Venezuela, Sri Lanka. One other victim was believed to be a foreigner but did not have identification.
In Ottawa, Foreign affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione had said the department was aware a Canadian citizen may have been affected by the blaze.
"We are working closely with local authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance to Canadian citizens as required," he said.
Cacchione added that friends and relatives seeking information on Canadian citizens believed to be in Sulaimaniyah should contact 1-800-387-3124.
An employer of several of the other foreigners has come forward. The general director of the AsiaCell mobile phone company, Farouq Mulla Mustafa, said four of its engineers from the Philippines, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Cambodia were among the dead.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene in which smoke filled the hallways and billowed out of the windows, forcing some hotel guests to jump from the upper floors in a desperate attempt to avoid the flames.
One man who was visiting friends at the hotel, Mariwan Asaad, described seeing flames and smoke filling the corridors on the third floor, forcing him to stumble blindly in search of a way out.
Through the open doorway of one room he saw a man lying on the floor, dead from smoke inhalation.
"I entered the room and threw myself from the window. I broke my legs.
"The pain was so great that I lost consciousness. I found myself in the hospital," he said, speaking just before going into the operating room for surgery.
The owner of another hotel next door said the fire reached his building but his hotel workers managed to douse the flames.
"Thick smoke was going out from all the hotel windows. I saw at least three people jumping from the fifth story," Hawri Hassan said.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation, and the lack of fire escapes contributed to the high death toll, said the head of the city's fire department, Brig. Yadgar Mohammed Mustafa.
Sulaimaniyah, 260 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, is the commercial capital of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region and the second largest city.
A number of foreign oil companies operate in the Kurdish north, which sits atop about 40 per cent of Iraq's total 115 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves.
However, the apparent lack of fire escapes at the building raises questions about the Kurdish building boom and whether corners are being cut in pursuit of economic growth.
"There is too much building going on in Sulamaniyah without enough government oversight," said one builder in the city, Arass Karim Wali.
"Most of them have no safety regulations, especially in the hotels and the markets."
With files from The Canadian Press
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