Great Eastern Hotel fire: 1 killed, 27 hurt

One man died and at least 27 people were injured in a fire that broke out at the Great Eastern Hotel in Quezon City Thursday night, radio DZBB reported. Authorities withheld the name of the lone fatality pending notification of his next kin. The report said most of the injured guests were occupants of the eighth floor where they jumped when the fire started early in the night. The fire reached Task Force Charlie as of 10 p.m. Thursday. QTV-11 television reported that many of those who were injured suffered cuts after breaking glass windows to get to safety. Many guests were forced to go up to the hotel's rooftop and await rescue there because of the thick smoke. At least one female guest was reported to have suffocated and was rushed to the Capitol Medical Center. Rescuers still could not give an estimate on how many guests were in the hotel as rescue operations were still ongoing as of 10 p.m. "Yung isang guest tumalon mula sa 12th or 14th floor. Sinalo ko sa 9th floor (One of the guests jumped from the 12th or 14th floor. It was lucky I caught the guest at the 9th floor)," said a hotel supervisor initially identified as Clifford Bangan. Bangan said the hotel has 20 floors. The sixth and seventh floors appeared to be affected most in the fire, he said. He also insisted the fire exits in the hotel are working. It was one of the largest hotel fires in Quezon City since August 2001, when a fire that hit the Manor Hotel in Quezon City left more than 70 dead and 100 injured. An investigation showed the six-story Manor Hotel had no working smoke alarms, and some of the fire exits were locked or obstructed and there were no emergency lights or sprinkler systems. In 1996, 162 people, mainly teenagers, were killed in a blaze at the Ozone Disco, which had no alarm systems, emergency lights, sprinkler systems or proper fire exits.- GMANews.TV