A fire that tore through a COVID-19 treatment ward in an Iraqi hospital in the city of Nasiriyah killed dozens of people.
Officials said on Tuesday the death toll in the Monday night blaze at Al Hussain Educational Hospital is at least 92, and around 100 others were injured, CBS News reported.
Police say an explosion was caused by sparks from faulty wiring that ignited an oxygen tank, according to Reuters, which also cited a medic at the hospital who said the facility suffers from a severe lack of funding.
The overwhelming majority of victims were patients and their families, provincial healthcare workers said.
“Most of the patients were breathing through ventilators and unable to move,” Aws Adel, a provincial health official, told the New York Times. “Most of the hospital staff were able to escape.”
US SANCTIONS PUT IRAQ BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
The tragedy mirrors an almost identical one last April, in which a blaze caused by an exploding oxygen tank killed over 80 people in a packed COVID-19 ward in Baghdad, after which Iraq’s health minister resigned.
This time around, Iraq Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi suspended the hospital director and some local officials and ordered them to be detained during an investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
