Eighty-two people are dead and 110 are injured after a fire broke out in the intensive care unit of a Baghdad hospital that cared for severe coronavirus patients, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, officials blamed negligence, with initial reports saying that the late-night fire was caused by an oxygen cylinder exploding inside the Ibn al Khatib Hospital, the Associated Press reported. The Interior Ministry has reportedly ruled out criminal activity.
Civil defense teams drove the effort to put out and control the fire, the ministry said in a statement posted to Facebook. At least 28 of the people who died were patients on ventilators being treated for severe symptoms of COVID-19, according to a spokesman for Iraq’s human rights commission.
Nurse Maher Ahmed aided in evacuating patients late Saturday night, according to the Associated Press. He described the flames on the hospital’s second-floor isolation hall as “volcanoes of fire.”
Ahmed revealed that most of the people killed suffered from severe burns, were overcome by smoke, or were unwilling to leave relatives using ventilators. Those patients were unable to be moved, he added.
Shortly after the fire, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi ordered an immediate investigation and promised to keep those negligent accountable for the incident. He also held a special session with the Council of Ministers to discuss the tragic fire, ordering the investigation to be completed within five days, according to the statement from his office.
The prime minister has since fired the director-general of the Baghdad Health Department in the al Rusafa area, where the hospital is located, the director of Ibn al Khatib Hospital, and the hospital’s director of engineering and maintenance.
“We mourn the loss of life in the fire at Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad,” United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “We are in touch with Iraqi officials and have offered assistance. Our strategic partnership with Iraq is first and foremost a partnership between our two peoples. We are prepared to support the Government of Iraq and its people at this tragic moment.”
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This is a developing story, and it will be updated.
