Pictures of Mumbai Attack

Armed security personnel wait outside the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai on Thursday.

Luxury hotel transformed into war zone: witness

Meanwhile, Canadians relayed their harrowing tales of how they escaped when gunmen descended on the two hotels, widely popular with tourists and among India's most famous.

Police officers inspect a car after they shot dead two suspected gunmen in Mumbai late Wednesday night.

Raynor Burke of Newfoundland and Labrador was in the lobby of the Taj Mahal hotel shortly after arriving in Mumbai when pandemonium broke out.

At first he dismissed the shots ringing out as firecrackers, but then saw young men in black T-shirts firing automatic weapons into the crowds.

"They were literally just emptying round after round into a crowd of people."

Burke fled to the swimming pool area only to find more gunmen shooting people, mostly women, and trying to corral guests.

"It went from being the nicest hotel I had ever seen to a war zone," said Burke. He then ran up a stairwell behind a police officer, but lost him and then dove through a glass window.

"I have no idea how high it was, to be quite honest," said Burke. "I mean, at that point, I was already full of blood. I had fallen once by the swimming pool and the pool — there was blood everywhere."

Burke said he hid out in an alleyway for an hour and a half as the shooting and explosions continued in the 565-room luxury hotel.

Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel