Two missing as hotel fire survivors return home

Aug 20 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

SURVIVORS of the devastating blaze which ripped through a seafront hotel in Cornwall returned to Merseyside yesterday.

Fears are growing for two people still missing after the blaze, which severely damaged the Newquay hotel and left one person dead.

Holidaymakers from Merseyside, as well as Cheshire and Lancashire, were at the Penhallow Hotel when fire swept through the building at 12.15am on Saturday.

Two coaches from Lancashire-based tour operators Robinsons Holidays had taken tourists from North West England to spend a week at the hotel.

A total of 86 people with the holiday firm were staying there at the time.

Two guests are still unaccounted for and it has not yet been revealed where they are from.

Emergency teams investigating the hotel blaze are unlikely to be able to start until tomorrow.

The four-storey hotel has been partly demolished, but police said the fire was still smouldering and the search could not start until it was fully out.

Some residents were forced to jump to safety as the blaze swept through the building causing parts of the structure to collapse later.

A 43-year-old man died after jumping from the second or third floor to escape the flames. Four other people are still in hospital and one, an elderly woman, is critical but stable.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the missing people may have been inside the hotel when the fire broke out.

At its height, the fire was tackled by more than 100 firefighters and witnesses described flames shooting 30ft from the roof and said they felt intense heat 100 yards away.

The building has been reduced to a burnt-out shell, with rubble around eight feet deep and debris scattered across the surrounding road.

One survivor, Harry Hill, from the Isle of Wight, said he did not take the alarm seriously until staff started banging on his second floor room.

He said: “There were no flames where we were, but as soon as we were out we could see the other fire escape was alight and there were two girls trying to make their way down it.”

Police have also revealed that a burglary took place a few hours before the fire started, although officers say they are not connecting it to the fire.

alanweston