A whirlwind tour by a family from Tamil Nadu ended in a tragedy on Tuesday night when T Prabhu found that he had lost his two small children – 8-year-old daughter Diya and less than four-year-old son P Rithan.

“We lost everything in this vacation,” says Prabhu, who, accompanied by his wife, two children and 61-year-old father-in-law, first visited Delhi, followed by Sikkim and Darjeeling. They reached Kolkata to board their train to Chennai.

On reaching Kolkata, the family chose to stay at Rituraj Hotel as it was near to the railway station. On the fateful night, they were scheduled to board the train by 11.45 pm.

On Tuesday evening, my wife and I had gone out to get dinner for all five of us. When we returned to the hotel, we found that it was on fire and people were screaming for help. We thought, like others, they had also gone to the hotel’s terrace.

But when the fire was doused and the bodies were brought out, we realised we had lost everything in this vacation,” said Prabhu, whose father-in-law was also among the deceased.

Among the deceased was Manoj Paswan of Jharkhand, who worked as a waiter at the hotel. Manoj died after he jumped off the building in panic.

“He worked as a waiter for the past 25 years. When we heard that there was a fire at the hotel, he was on the third floor. After that, we heard that he lost his life. His family will come,” his friend Prabhu Ram said.

A businessman from Odisha, Dusmanta Kumar Swain was in Kolkata to set up a meeting. “My father had come to visit his friend. After that we heard about the fire and his phone was not reachable. Later, we got this news,” said his son Rahul.

Among the 14 dead, some bodies have been identified. Those identified include Dipendra Ram (46), P Rithan (3 years 8 months), P Diya (8); Pranay Pathak (13) and Aradhya Agarwal (22); Rajesh Kumar Santuka (61) from Cuttack (Odisha); Niraj Kumar (20) from Bhagalpur.