'I feared for my children's lives' - Restaurant boss tells of Dubai hotel blaze horror

Mr Shah Ahad, from Wednesbury, and his wife Sheuli Khatun, were left stranded outside the Address Downtown hotel fearing for the lives of their young children Zaeed, aged 11, and Aneeqa, six.

Mr Ahad, 41, who runs Nishads inStafford, said he had left the youngsters with relatives, who themselves had a six-month-old baby with them, while he and his wife went to pick up food from a nearby mall.

But when they returned to the hotel, security guards stopped them from entering the 63-storey building after flames had ignited at the resort.

Mr Ahad told the Express & Star: "My two children were with my sister-in-law. All I could see was smoke coming from the hotel.

"I tried to contact them on the mobile phone but it wouldn't connect. I was really worried for their safety."

Due to the chaos outside, it took an agonising 60 minutes before he realised his children and relatives had been evacuated safely.

He managed to capture pictures on his phone of smoke billowing out from the hotel.

"Everything was blocked off it was very hectic," Mr Ahad added.

"It was about an hour before I met up with my family outside. I had to borrow someone else's phone. We had been moved to a different place.

"Luckily my sister-in-law was out on the balcony and she saw the smoke coming out of the hotel from below them.

"They got out of the room and headed down the stairs but they were on the 47th floor so it took them about half-an-hour before they got down.

"It was very fortunate that my sister-in-law was on the balcony and saw the smoke."

Fourteen people are believed to have suffered minor injuries in the blaze but Mr Ahad said none of his family were hurt.

They have now been transferred to Atlantis, The Palm hotel, and were due to return to the UK today but that has been scuppered because their passports were left behind and they are not able to return inside.

Mr Ahad said it is likely they will not recover other belongings in the room including his wife's iPad, jewellery, his brother-in-law's laptop as well as clothes.

He added they were in contact with the British Embassy about arranging flights home but despite the inconvenience he said he was just relieved his family are safe.

"That's the main thing, everyone got out, my son and daughter and our family," he added.

He has worked at Nishad's in Stafford for around 16 years.

His brother Shah Abdin said he and fellow relatives back home feared the worst when they were alerted to the fire from news reports.

Mr Abdin said: "We were all very worried.

"We heard what had happened and tried to call Shah but couldn't get through at first.

"I spoke to him and thankfully they are all okay. None of them were hurt. As soon as I saw what happened I said, 'I should never have let him go on holiday'. Everyone is fine and that's all that matters now."

The fire started around 9.30pm on Thursday.

More than 12 hours later, Dubai firefighters largely watched the fire from the ground, unable at one point to use a water hose on a ladder truck. They later regained water pressure and resumed spraying the building.

It took more than 20 hours to put out.