In the country’s latest deadly hospital accident, at least 18 people, including two health workers were killed in a fire at a COVID-19 hospital in India’s western state of Gujaret late Friday night.
The fire broke out around midnight in the intensive care (ICU) ward of the Patel Welfare Hospital, a designated COVID-19 facility, in the city of Bharuch, 115 miles (185 kilometers) south of the state’s main commercial city, Ahmedabad, reports Reuters.
R.V. Chudasama, the superintendent of police in Bharuch, said, “Sixteen patients and two staff members have died in the fire. Twelve of them died due to fire and smoke. Preliminary investigation shows the fire was caused because of a short circuit.”
The Associated Press added that 31 other patients were rescued by hospital workers and firefighters and transferred to another hospital, where their condition was stable.
“There was a lot of chaos because of the scale of the fire … hospital staff rushed my family members out from the ward and we used our car to take them to another hospital,” said Parth Gandhi, whose two relatives, both COVID-19 patients escaped the disaster.
India set another global record on Saturday recording 401,993 new COVID cases, taking its tally to more than 19.1 million, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard. An additional 3,523 people died in the past 24 hours, raising the overall fatalities to 211,853.
