Wednesbury family home after New Year's Eve Dubai hotel inferno

Those are the words of a Wednesbury man after he returned to his luxury hotel in Dubai 10 days after his family had been evacuated due to a huge New Year's Eve blaze.

Shah Ahad, his wife and two children, six and 11, escaped from The Address Downtown Hotel unharmed as it was engulfed in flames.

The 41-year-old, who runs Nishad's Restaurant in Stafford, has now finally returned to the UK after a week-long ordeal trying to secure flights home.

On Monday they were allowed back in to The Address to recover what belongings they could.

Mr Ahad's own room on the 55th floor avoided major damage, apart from smoke, however on the day of the blaze they had been in a relatives room on the 47th floor which was left absolutely gutted by fire.

He said: "When we went back to the hotel I just thought 'My God', I was thanking someone. I thought someone must be looking after us.

"In that way we were very lucky to have survived that without any of us dying. When you think of a hotel catching on fire you think it is likely people would be killed. But all of my family were okay, none of them were injured."

While the picturesque views of Dubai remain, the hotel room has been left devastated by the flames leaving the walls and floors completely charred while window frames were ripped apart.

Mr Ahad said: "It was completely damaged, even the safe that was in there.

"All of us had been in there because it was facing the fireworks on New Year's Eve. My wife's hand bag was in there, her phone, credit cards, the passports.

"Our room on the 55th floor was damaged by the smoke but we managed to recover some of the important things."

Mr Ahad and his wife Sheuli Khatun had gone to the local mall to collect food and left their children with relatives in the hotel when the flames took hold.

They managed to get out safely but the couple's six-year-old daughter Aneeqa remains shaken by the scenes.

Mr Ahad said: "She has been okay but still wakes up of a night thinking about what she saw, people running down the stairs and the fire and smoke."

They were supposed to fly back on January 2 but that was scuppered because their passports were lost in the hotel.

What followed was a gruelling week of trying to arrange emergency passports home, with the final documents only arriving last Wednesday.

Finally, they were all able to fly back on Friday night.

Mr Ahad said: "We are relieved to be back and have spent the weekend getting back to normality. The kids have gone back to school now.

"It is one of those things which could have happened anywhere you never know.

He added: "While I was in Dubai a lot of customers from the restaurant were ringing and texting me and asking my brother if I was okay. That was a really nice thing for them to do.

"I have been in Stafford for 16 years and some of the customers have been like family."