Czech Republic: Residential hotel tenants have no choice but to return to burned-out, toxic facility

On the afternoon of 12 September, part of the Freedom residential hotel in the Krásné Březno quarter of Ústí nad Labem was burned to cinders. All of the occupants, approximately 40 people, had to evacuate the building.

Some of the evacuees, including children, have since returned to their burned-out units because they have nowhere else to go. Miroslav Brož, an activist in Ústí nad Labem, is warning them not to take up residence there again because the facility is full of toxic fumes.

Emergency medical technicians, firefighters and police officers intervened at the scene. Police closed down U Pivovarské zahrady Street because of the fire.

According to the available information, one of the rooms evidently caught fire either from an electric hot plate or from a smoke bomb used to eradicate bedbugs. Firefighters had to evacuate one child using a ladder and brought four people out of the building with breathing masks on.

None of the tenants were seriously injured by the smoke inhalation. "I don’t know why the fire started. There was a bad smell and my computer stopped working for a moment. I discovered that the electricity wasn’t working anywhere in the building," news server Deník.cz reports an occupant of the residential hotel telling investigators.

According to Miroslav Brož of the Konexe association, who has spent all day at the scene, the third and fourth floors of the facility are uninhabitable and the question of where the occupants will now be accommodated is unresolved. Some people stayed out in front of the building all night, while others survived the night by sleeping in the homes of relatives.   

Early this morning, several tenants returned to their rooms at the residential hotel despite warnings from firefighters that they were contaminated with toxic gases. "They’re cooking lunch now. Several children aren’t feeling well, and now they don’t know what to do," Brož told news server Romea.cz.

The Konexe association has endeavored to contact Deputy Mayor for Social Affairs Kailová, but has not managed to reach her. Messages have been left with her assistant.

"Something has to be done quickly. Some of the tenants don’t have anywhere to go, so they have returned to those floors where the fire was and they are breathing toxic waste. This stuff is carcinogenic and poisonous. The people have been there since morning and a great deal depends on how long they will stay in that environment, whether just one day or longer. It’s the same as if they had been afflicted by a natural disaster, the town should aid the people from the residential hotel and arrange substitute accommodation for them," said Brož.

Brož said the residential hotel had been a catastrophe even before it caught fire. "The fire could have begun as a result of the poor conditions in the residential hotel," he said.

According to some reports, "dungeons" have been created in the cellar of the facility and some tenants are living in them. The cellar windows are paned with frosted glass, so those reports have not yet been properly verified.