Fire tore through a rooftop restaurant in the Indian financial hub of Mumbai early on Friday leaving at least 14 people dead, police said.
Most of the victims were women attending a birthday party, including the celebrant who had just turned 28, according to police and family members.
The fire department received a call about the blaze in a commercial building in the Kamala Mills district around 3 in the morning, an official said, Reuters reported.
The fires comes in as the latest disaster to raise concerns over fire safety in India.
“The fire brigade and police are investigating the cause of the fire, but we still don’t know how it started,” a senior police officer told media.
Many people tried to escape but they were trapped as a false ceiling collapsed in the four-storey building, local media reported.
The fire was extinguished in the early hours but an AFP reporter at the scene said the rooftop where the party was taking place had been gutted, with blackened ice buckets and ashtrays strewn around.
"Fourteen people have succumbed to their injuries and remaining victims have been discharged from the KEM hospital. Most of the deaths were due to asphyxiation," Avinash Supe, dean of the local KEM hospital told AFP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences.
“Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly,” the PM’s Office tweeted.
