11 killed, 75 injured in hotel fire

A pre-dawn inferno at a four-star hotel in Karachi killed 11 people on Monday and wounded 75, police said, with desperate guests jumping from windows and scrambling down knotted bedsheets to escape.

The blaze at the Regent Plaza Hotel in the center of the port city broke out when many guests were still asleep, with a lack of fire alarms and emergency exits leaving many trapped in their rooms.

At least two Pakistani international cricketers were among the guests, one-dayers Sohaib Maqsood and Hammad Azam, though they were not believed to be seriously injured.