(CNN) — Gautam Patel was staying in the Trident Hotel, which is adjacent to the Oberoi Hotel, when the attacks began:

An Indian police officer directs people leaving the Taj Mahal after gunmen attacked the hotel overnight Wednesday.
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I was up on the 11th floor and while I was on a conference call, I heard two large noises, and they sounded like thuds from within the room, and that’s when we realized that there was something serious happening.
Terrorist attacks mumbai
When I heard the two thuds, that’s when I looked out window and onto my left I could see the Oberoi Hotel — there was a restaurant in the Oberoi Hotel — which was under flames.
We left our room, walked down the fire exit, the hotel staff met us down at the bottom of hotel and put us into large banquet hall where we saw about 150 to 200 people. The lights were out, so we were just told to huddle there until we heard further.

Watch Patel describe the evacuation »
We stayed there for about one hour, that’s when we heard another large two bangs. We couldn’t tell if they were from outside or within the hotel, then we heard some gunfire. Twenty, 30 minutes past that, one of the senior advisers of the hotel mentioned we would be escorted to the back of the hotel, put into groups of 10 people and told to run to the neighboring cinema hall, where we would be safe.
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I think most of the activity was happening in the lobby. People were talking, rumoring about the fact that terrorists were in the hotel, so there was a search by room-to-room, so I think the activity was happening in the hotel and the front of the hotel.
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New York-based filmmaker Smriti Mundhra and her parents were staying in an apartment near the Oberoi, one of the hotels where gunmen took hostages:
We’re all safe in our apartment right now, following instructions by the police to stay at home with the doors locked and away from windows.
Just as we were getting ready for bed last night, I heard a little bit of commotion on the street and some police sirens and didn’t really think much of it, then my parents came in and told me something was going on in the neighborhood. So we watched the news and realized essentially there’s a terrorist attack happening just outside our door.

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