Hotel fire forces 140 guests out in Amsterdam
A fire in a hotel on the Johan Cruijff Boulevard in Amsterdam forced about 140 guests out on Monday night. Two of them went to hospital for checks after inhaling smoke.
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Illustrative photo: Alf van Beem / CC0
About 140 guests were evacuated from a hotel on the Johan Cruijff Boulevard in Amsterdam after a fire broke out at 23.45 on Monday night. The fire service quickly brought it under control.
Ambulance staff checked several guests. Two were taken to hospital for a check-up because they had inhaled too much smoke.
The fire service scaled up its response to a "major fire" (large fire) because of the many calls to the emergency services and the heavy smoke, a spokesperson for the Amsterdam-Amstelland safety region said. The number of guests in the building was also a factor.
With 140 people inside, firefighters searched the building several times ("meerdere zoekslagen") to make sure everyone got out in time.
The fire may have started when an appliance caught fire.
The evacuated guests were first sheltered in the departure hall of Bijlmer ArenA station. Later in the night they were moved to hotels nearby, escorted by ambulances. "They had been standing outside and have to be checked," the spokesperson said.
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Veiligheidsregio Amsterdam-Amstelland
The Amsterdam-Amstelland safety region is one of the regional bodies in the Netherlands that coordinate emergency services, including the fire service, ambulance care and disaster management, across a set of municipalities. It covers the city of Amsterdam and surrounding municipalities in the Amstelland area. When an incident grows large, the safety region's staff and spokespeople coordinate the response and communicate about it.