A BODY found in a landmark hotel which was seriously damaged by fire could take weeks to identify, police said yesterday.

More than 130 guests and 25 staff were evacuated from the Majestic Hotel, in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, on Wednesday when a fire ripped through the 19th Century building.

Fire crews and police discovered a body in staffing quarters on the fifth floor of the 170-bedroom hotel. A post-mortem examination carried out yesterday proved inconclusive.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said last night: “It was not possible to carry out a formal identification of the body and the examination did not establish the cause of death.

“In each case, it is likely to take a number of weeks.”

One member of staff remains unaccounted for – 41-year-old kitchen porter Nigel Butterfield.

Police said Mr Butterfield finished work on Tuesday afternoon and was due to have a day off on Wednesday.

The police spokesman added: “Efforts to trace Nigel Butterfield are still ongoing.”

The emergency services received 13 calls from guests and members of the public and arrived at about 5.15am on Wednesday.

Sixteen appliances and about 90 firefighters were involved in tackling the blaze.

The operation has now been scaled down with only one appliance remaining at the scene, working on damping down and checking for potential hot-spots.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said agencies around Harrogate had been working to minimise the distress and inconvenience caused to affected guests.

“As soon as we got news of the fire we sent a member of our team over to the Majestic to liaise with the chief executive of the hotel,”

he said.

“All guests were placed in different hotels around Harrogate very quickly and now we are looking to future events.

“We have organised for a wedding that is taking place this weekend to be moved to another venue and will continue with this work.

“It is a terrible thing that has happened and it looks as though the hotel will be out of action for some time.

“We owe a duty of responsibility to those who are planning on coming to Yorkshire and Harrogate to ensure their plans are as uninterrupted as possible.”

A spokesman for the hotel said it would be fully closed until May 16 and this decision would be reviewed on an ongoing basis.