South Sudan hotel catches fire

October 2, 2013 (JUBA)- South Sudan Hotel which houses over 200 guests daily, most of whom senior government officials and members of the diplomatic corps on Wednesday caught fire causing panic and destroying property whose amount could not be ascertained.

The hotel’s managing director, Mel Garang Yuot, blamed the cause of the fire on faulty electricity wiring, saying technicians were working to address the fault at the time he left the hotel.

“We asked technicians to check the problem… they came in the morning. I left them working on it when I went to the ministry of finance to follow up something. It was while there when I received the information at 12:00 pm that the hotel had caught fire and it was burning. I decided to cut short what I was doing and came to find that the upper part of the hotel was consumed by the fire”, said Yuot.

Yuot said personal belongings to guests had been destroyed by the fire.

“Alot of things have been lost. Most of our clients have lost personal belongings. It is huge damage”, Yuot told Sudan Tribune in an interview on Wednesday.

He did not give estimated cost of property lost saying management was still conducting an assessment to gather details.

Francis Piol Bol Buk, a resident in the hotel at the time of the fire said he lost all his belongings including those of his wife.

Another resident, Moses Deng said he had only remained with the clothes he was wearing; “It is a big disaster. It started while I was at work. There is nothing left. Everything for me is gone. What is left are only the clothes you see on me because I was wearing them”, he said.

(ST)