Fire: Fifteen Pilgrims Killed in Medina

At least fifteen people were killed and one hundred and thirty injured in a fire at a hotel in the holy city of Medina, Saudi Arabia, reported Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The blaze started on Saturday afternoon in the eastern part of the city, the authorities said. Ahmad Zaki, an employee of the Egyptian embassy in Jeddah, told the Youm al-Sabaa newspaper that the maintenance work at the hotel led to an electrical fire. The nationalities of the victims are not known. Around seven hundred pilgrims from different countries were staying in the hotel. The fire was brought under control on Saturday afternoon and the survivors were transferred to other hotels in the city. Colonel Khaled al-Juhani, a Medina civil defence department official, told al-Youm newspaper that more than 110 security personnel battled to control the blaze. “The fire resulted in the death of fifteen people caused by fainting, choking, bleeding, cardiac arrest and breathing. We also treated 30 cases of suffocation due to the fire,” Mohammed Mahmoud Kheyat, spokesman for the Saudi Red Crescent in Medina, told the website.

Prince Faisal bin Salman, Medina’s governor, said that the government would look into the incident. Medina is a major religious destination for Muslims around the world after Makkah and is the burial site of Prophet Muhammad.

Infoeditor