THE ESCAPE Survivors last night told of the panic among hotel guests who tried to flee the suffocating smoke only to find exit doors locked.
Some leaped from windows, others knotted sheets together and tried to scale down the side of the building.
Two guests trapped on the eighth floor - the top - of the Duan Xi hotel used a chair to break a window and draped sheets down, only to find they did not reach the ground.
Businessman Mr Lin said: 'It only reached the fourth floor. So we gave up.
'We saw one boarder jump out from the seventh floor. He lay on the ground motionless, probably dead,' said Mr Wang.
Mr Lin, who cut his hand smashing the window, said staff did not alert guests as the smoke billowed through the hotel.
A sales assistant at a furniture shop opposite the hotel, who stayed at the shop overnight, said he had seen several people jump out of windows on the upper floors because they could not escape.