Blasts at a multi-storey hotel in the Bangladesh capital injured more than 30 people overnight, police and fire authorities said today, adding the explosions appeared to have been caused by gas leaking from a roomheater.
They said two explosions rocked the nine-storey Orchard Plaza hotel in Dhaka's Nayapaltan area late on Sunday night, setting two upper floors on fire.
Firefighters said both blasts were apparently caused by "gas explosions". "It's not a bomb," a fire official told reporters.
In recent years Bangladesh has been repeatedly hit by bomb blasts, mostly blamed on Islamist militants, which have killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.
One of the victims of the hotel blasts was a Sri Lankan national who told the police that there was an explosion just when he lit a cigarette in his room.
"The gas might have leaked from a heater at a room on the 6th floor where the Sri Lankan was staying," Police Inspector Farid Ahmed said.
A Nepali hotel guest said the second blast occurred three and half hours after the first one, and it was much bigger.
The injured were being treated at hospitals for multiple burn injuries. There were guests from Singapore and India as well.
"We are checking the whole place. Bomb or gas, it's a serious incident and we taking it seriously from security point of view," said a senior police officer on the scene.
Ashish Chokhani, a Nepali citizen, who was in Dhaka for a business trip, said the first blast took place at about 9.15pm (1515 GMT) on the sixth floor of the hotel.
"I ran out of my room and went down, and came back after some time. At around 11.30 there was a bigger blast on the hotel roof and the hotel was immediately vacated," he said.
"People were saying the blasts were caused by leakage in gas pipelines on the roof and there was a big fire," added Chokhani.