Smoke killed one,8 jumped to death in Bangalore building fire

On Tuesday,as fire raged through Carlton Towers,two of the faces that emerged from the seventh-floor windows were that...

On Tuesday,as fire raged through Carlton Towers,two of the faces that emerged from the seventh-floor windows were that of Nitin Dubey,42,and Rani Anjaneyappa,37. Unlike their colleague Benzi Kumar and others,they did not jump out. They were brought down long after Benzi attempted to escape the building and fell to death. They are critical but alive. Post-mortem reports on Wednesday confirmed what had been preliminary suspicions,that eight of the nine deaths due to the Carlton fire were caused by head injuries and only one by asphyxiation.

The nine victims were identified as Benzi Kumar,29,receptionist at Equus International Real Estate; R Savitha,30,senior relationship manager,Purohit Madan Singh,30,insurance adviser,both from Religare Macquarie; Surabhi Joshi,30,business development manager,Sunil Iyer,31,sales manager,both from JDA Software; Rajesh Subramanian,40,capital adviser,Akhil Uday,23,analyst,both from Chesaspeake Group; Fayaz Pasha,30,and Siddharth Padam,35,both visitors to the building.

Police and firemen disputed reports that many of the people who jumped to death were induced to believe that firemen would be ready to catch them. No fire force or police officials who were on the spot asked people to jump. Firemen used loud speakers to ask people to break windows on the upper floors to escape the fumes but not to jump. Victims on the upper floors were misled by the actions of the public that had gathered and many jumped, ACP G B Manjunath said.

Police said people brought out mattresses and bed sheets and attempted to get people to jump on them with several people holding firm. This proved to be a disaster in most cases though one security guard who jumped from one of the lower floors onto a mattress escaped unscathed.

We had spoken to Surabhi an hour before

Lucknow: Surabhis body was brought to her Aliganjhome here by her brother Yogesh,who also works in Bangalore,and cremated on Wednesday. Surabhi was trapped in the building when she called her friend Kunal for help. Kunal informed her father N K Joshi in Lucknow who,in turn,asked Yogesh to rush to the spot. Yogeshs office is a kilometre from Carlton Towers.

When Yogesh reached the building,he was advised to look for her at Panipat Hospital. Two hours later,he was informed that Surabhi had died, said Surabhis uncle D K Joshi. Surabhis elder sister Urvashi said,When Kunal called,we were shocked. An hour ago we had spoken to Surabhi. After Kunals call,we switched on the TV and asked Yogesh to find out. Yogesh said Surabhi had jumped from the sixth floor of the building and died of head injuries. ENS