More than 40 hurt in B'desh hotel blasts

Two explosions at a multi-storey hotel in Dhaka, was apparently caused by "gas explosions" late on Sunday, according to the police.

Blasts at a multi-storey hotel in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka injured more than 40 people, police said on Monday.

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They said two explosions rocked the nine-storey Orchard Plaza hotel at the city's Nayapaltal area late on Sunday night, setting two upper floors on fire.

Firefighters said the victims included one Sri Lankan national. They said the fire was apparently caused by "gas explosions".

"It's not a bomb," one fire official told reporters.

The injured were being treated at hospitals for multiple burn injuries.

"We are checking the whole place. Bomb or gas, it's a serious incident and we taking it seriously from security point of view," said a senior police officer on the scene.

In recent years Bangladesh has been repeatedly hit by bomb blasts, mostly blamed on Islamist militants, which have killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.

(Reporting by Anis Ahmed and Nizam Ahmed; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Alex Richardson)