Staff and guests of a hotel in the West Bay holding a birthday bash outside the 21-storey hotel yesterday. R O Ibrahim
DOHA: The staffers of a hotel in West Bay area of the city had lined up a brief birthday bash for their duty manager yesterday, but their hopes of spending some joyous moments with their boss were dashed as they and the guests had to flee the 21-storey hotel building following the quake scare.
But so determined were the staffers to go ahead with the cake-cutting that one of them, while waiting outside the hotel, rushed to the coffee shop in the hotel lobby where the cake was kept ready, and got it out. They and the guests who were also evacuated following the tremor scare, then joined in the brief celebration in the open and did greet their duty manager a happy birthday — but not after the scare was over.
A front office staffer of the hotel told this newspaper that the aftershocks of the powerful tremor were felt right from the third up to the last floor of their 21-storey building.
“Our guests as well as colleagues on these floors felt the aftershocks and panicked and were evacuated.” Everyone was taken out to safety. And as people were just biding their time to get back to the hotel — which took more than two hours — one of the staffers rushed to the coffee shop and got the cake out.
The cake was cut outside in the open a little past 3pm, the hotel official said. The birthday bash was to be originally held in the office of the hotel, according to the official. “We had about 50 to 60 guests when the aftershocks were felt.” The Peninsula
