**At least 24 people are now known to have died in a huge fire in the Indian city of Calcutta, police say.**The blaze, which began on Tuesday afternoon in the Park Street area, has been put out, but the historic Stephen Court building has been badly damaged.
Dozens were also injured in the fire - many when they were forced to jump from high floors to escape, police said.
Officials say the blaze was likely sparked by a short circuit in a lift, but an investigation is continuing.
The fire engulfed the six-storey building, home to Music World and adjacent to Flurys, Calcutta’s well known confectionery.
The BBC’s Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta says this is the highest toll in a fire incident in the city in recent years.
Fires in high-rise buildings are fairly common in the city and our correspondent says that there have been at least 10 major incidents since 2008.
Electric short circuits have been responsible for most of these fires.
Poor maintenance, lack of fire-fighting equipment in the buildings, poor capabilities of the fire services are some of the reasons behind such frequent fires in the city’s high-rise buildings, our correspondent says.
Badly charred
“Many died of severe burns because they were trapped in the building. And some died after they jumped from the high-rise to escape the blaze,” Calcutta’s police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti said.
Most of the deaths, he said, were reported after midnight as those admitted in hospitals with severe burns or fractures succumbed to their wounds.
Many of the bodies are yet to be identified.
Stephen Court, built by Armenian real estate speculator Stephen Arathoon in 1910, is one of Calcutta’s oldest high-rises.
“Some parts of the building may have been rendered vulnerable after the devastating fire,” Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said.
“We have to inspect the building fully before we can allow it to be used by the residents,” he added.
Nearly 100 fire fighters and 25 fire engines spent several hours struggling to control the blaze.
But the firemen were initially handicapped by a lack of hydraulic ladders, which arrived some time after they reached the scene, leading to complaints from residents.
“Many people jumped to death because the firemen took 90 minutes to bring the high hydraulic ladders. They did not even have nets into which people could jump safely,” said Pawan Santhalia, a Park Street vendor who joined the rescue effort.
“Many people were stuck on the fourth floor. That’s where the fire had broken out and that’s where the situation was worse,” said Bijoy Das, another local who helped out with the rescue work.