Video: Smoke forces evacuation of Utrecht center hotel overnight
Emergency services evacuated a hotel on Ganzenmarkt in the center of Utrecht early Thursday morning after smoke started coming out of the building’s third floor. Paramedics checked a few guests for smoke inhalation, the local security region said on Twitter.
The smoke was noticed before 2:00 a.m. It took firefighters a few hours to figure out what was causing it. “The visible smoke went through various rooms and ventilation channels towards the roof,” the Utrecht police said on Instagram.
The fire department eventually identified the problem as an electrical short circuit caused by a leak in the bathroom. Firefighters extinguished the fire at 7:45 a.m.
On Instagram, the police praised the fire brigade’s tenacity. “Unfortunately, the damage to a number of buildings is considerable,” the police said.
According to the newspaper AD, the hotel in question is Mother Goose, located above cafe Ubica. The hotel has 24 rooms. It is not clear how many of them were occupied. The evacuated hotel guests got accommodation in other nearby hotels.