The managements of the five-star Taj and Oberoi-Trident hotels, which bore the brunt of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, said Monday they were carrying out risk and damage assessments, reported dpa.
The luxury hotels were at the centre of a hostage drama that began Wednesday night and ended Saturday as armed gunmen fired at and killed guests and staff and lobbed grenades that set off several fires.
The hotels lost 10 members of their staff each. The wife and child of a manager at the Taj were also killed.
The managements of the hotels said they were indebted to their staff who had shown exemplary courage and bravery in their efforts to protect guests. Both hotels have received hundreds of messages thanking the staff and voicing support, they said.
A total of 22 visitors and guests, including three foreigners, were killed at the Oberoi-Trident, Oberoi Group chairman PRS Oberoi said at a press briefing Sunday.
The Taj management still does not have an estimate of how many guests were killed.
Security agencies handed control of the Taj hotel to the management on Monday but some parts of the building were still inaccessible due to continuing security investigations or for safety reasons, the Taj management said in a statement.
More than 130 guests who were at the hotel had been accommodated at other Taj properties in Mumbai.
The 105-year-old building, which is an iconic landmark in Mumbai and one of India's most famous hotels, had been placed under a tight seal until a full risk assessment could be completed, the statement said.
Access was being given to a limited number of specialist personnel to remove all potential sources of risk arising from the attack.
Two bombs fitted with timers have been found in the neighbourhood of the Taj hotel and were defused early Thursday, Times of India newspaper reported, quoting highly-placed police sources.
One of the bombs was found 50 metres from the entrance to the Taj and the other in a lane behind the hotel. Police sources suspect the terrorists planned to escape in the confusion of the blasts, the newspaper said.
A third bomb placed near the entrance to the Oberoi Trident exploded, but the bomb disposal squad managed to put a cover on it, substantially reducing the impact, the sources were quoted as saying.
The Taj was heavily damaged during the almost 60-hour stand-off between the militants and elite commando forces. Parts of the building caught fire and a section of at least one floor was gutted.
A structural integrity assessment would be carried out once the risk assessment was completed, the Taj management said.
Mumbai civic officials, however, said while the facades were blackened by explosives and gutted by bullets, the structures of both the hotels did not appear to have any major problems, PTI news agency reported.
Structural engineers of the Mumbai municipal corporation had inspected the buildings and a final report was awaited, city official RA Rajeev was quoted as saying.
Even as the fires and gunbattles raged, the owners of the Taj had pledged to rebuild the hotel.
"We will rebuild every inch that has been damaged in this attack and bring the Taj back to its full glory," the management said in a statement on Thursday.
A management spokesperson said it was too early to estimate how long it would take to rebuild and reopen the Taj to guests.
PRS Oberoi said the same at his briefing, adding that the management wanted to open the hotels as soon as possible.
Mumbai residents, for whom the Taj is more than a hotel or a heritage building, believe it will rise like a phoenix from its ashes.
Filmmaker Zafar Hai said the Taj, which had seen years of laughter, sadness, marriages, birthday parties, the departure of the British and two world wars, was not just a building but "something which had a heart pumping inside it."
"I felt like a friend of mine was being molested right there before me," Hai was quoted as saying by PTI news agency as he watched television on Thursday and Friday.
"I know that the damage to the inside is phenomenal. It will take a lot of time but it should, and it will, rise like the phoenix," he said.
Meanwhile, the city of Mumbai returned to normal life on Monday, with schools, offices and stock markets open and the cinema industry that churns out hundreds of films each year back to work.
Roads were crowded and commuter trains packed.
"There were very few people on Friday and Saturday, but today it seemed they were more crowded than usual," Mumbai resident Sudhir Joshi, who commutes to work across Mumbai by train every day, was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.