At least 25 people, including tourists, died in a fire at a busy nightclub in the famous seaside resort of Goa, in western India, authorities in this former Portuguese colony announced on Sunday morning.
Published on: 07/12/2025 - 05:29Modified on: 07/12/2025 - 08:12
The fire broke out on the night of Saturday December 6 to Sunday December 7, after midnight, in a nightclub which is part of a hotel in Arpora, in the district of North Goa, in western India, local police said at dawn cited by the Press Trust of India (PTI) agency.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a statement that he was “deeply saddened”.
The chief minister of the local executive, Pramod Sawant, previously deplored on his X account "a very painful day for all of us in Goa", specifying that "25 people had lost their lives and six were injured".
This official specified that “the hotel staff and three or four tourists had died of asphyxiation”. He gave no details on the nationality of the victims, Indian or foreign countries.
Images from PTI, taken up by AFPTV, showed rescuers evacuating injured or dead people on stretchers, descending in the middle of the night a narrow stone staircase of the "Birch" establishment in front of which we see police, rescuers, ambulance drivers and onlookers crowding.
In other wide shots, a lot of smoke escapes from the scene of the disaster.
Minister Sawant assured that he had “ordered a large-scale investigation”, pledging that “those responsible will be subject to the most severe sanctions provided for by law”.
According to him, this “tragic accident should never have happened”, because “the establishment was operating without proper authorization and this negligence caused the fire”.
Gas explosion or pyrotechnic show
Local media, relying on their police sources, suggested that the sinister fire could have been started by an “explosion of a gas cylinder”.
Goa's fire chief, Nitin V. Raiker, explained on local TV CNN News18 that "most people died of suffocation in the basement and kitchen" after "a pyrotechnic show set wooden parts of the nightclub ablaze, sending smoke throughout the establishment."
Goa, a former Portuguese colony (1510-1961) located on the shores of the Arabian Sea, part of the Indian Ocean separating the Indian subcontinent from the Arabian Peninsula, is a seaside resort with a worldwide reputation.
It is frequented by Indian, Asian, Western and Russian tourists, attracted by its beaches, its entertainment venues and its rich colonial architectural heritage.
Goa received more than ten million tourists in 2024, including nearly 470,000 foreigners, according to official statistics.
Fires in India are frequent, due to infrastructure that is sometimes in poor condition and safety and evacuation standards that are not always applied or respected.
Last May, 17 people died in a fire in a building in the IT and tech city of Hyderabad (south).
A month earlier, 15 other people lost their lives in a burning hotel in Calcutta (east) while trying to jump out of the windows.
With AFP
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