Poles mourn for hostel fire dead

It was not immediately clear what fire alarm system the hostel had, if any

Poland has begun three days of mourning for the 21 people killed on Monday by a fire in a hostel for homeless families.

Another 20 were injured in the blaze, the country's deadliest for 29 years, which broke out during the night in the north-western town of Kamien Pomorski.

Witnesses said residents jumped from windows, some holding children.

Both President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk have openly questioned whether the hostel was safe and complied with fire regulations.

It was built in the early 1970s as a workers' hotel. Ownership of the building was transferred to the local authorities a few years ago.

'Burning like a torch'

Residents of Kamien Pomorski, 60km (37 miles) east of the border with Germany, gathered outside the wreckage of the three-storey building on Tuesday, where they lit candles and prayed. Many brought clothing and food for the survivors.

If the building burns at that fast a rate, and if nobody poured gasoline over the entire building and set it alight on purpose... then there must have been some fundamental flaw in the construction President Lech Kaczynski

The fire began early on Monday morning and spread rapidly.

"I couldn't breathe, so I opened the window and looked out, and the door was on fire because it was essentially made of paper," one survivor said.

"I put my trousers on and boots, and a friend gave me a jacket, and there wasn't any more time because it was burning like a torch. Some people jumped into the trees," he added.

At least 77 people were registered at the hostel, waiting for the local authority to provide them with housing. Police said the death toll could still rise as 11 people were still unaccounted for.

However, national fire service spokesman Pawel Fratczak said firefighters had "searched all three floors and everything left in them, such as burnt furniture, and we didn't find any [additional] remains".

It was not immediately clear what fire alarm system the hostel had, if any. The building was unlikely to have had smoke detectors, but likely did have a sprinkler system, Mr Fratczak said.

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Emergency teams say the cause of the blaze is not yet known

About 80% of the building was in flames when the first firefighters - stationed just 200m away - arrived a couple of minutes after receiving the alert, he added. It eventually took 21 fire crews to extinguish the flames.

Police and fire investigators are sifting through the wreckage of the building for clues about the cause of the blaze.

But after visiting the site on Monday, President Kaczynski said the walls of the top two floors appeared to have been made from a highly flammable material and that this might have contributed to the fire's speed and intensity.

"If the building burns at that fast a rate, and if nobody poured gasoline over the entire building and set it alight on purpose - and that theory doesn't exist right now - then there must have been some fundamental flaw in the construction," he said.

Prime Minister Tusk also questioned whether anyone should have been living in such a seemingly unsafe building and promised personally to supervise the investigation into the fire.

"From what we can tell at the moment, the fire brigades reacted as fast as possible and in a very professional manner. There are situations when chances for a successful rescue operation are little, especially in such a flammable building," he said.

"But a commission will decide if people should have been living in this building and I will be personally overseeing this matter because I know that in Poland there are a lot of places like this, too many."

Monday's blaze was Poland's deadliest since 1980, when a fire at a psychiatric hospital in Gorna Grupa left 55 people dead.