At least 18 persons, including 16 Covid-19 patients, died in a fire at a hospital at Bharuch in Gujarat in the early hours of Saturday, officials said.
The State Government said a judicial enquiry will be conducted into the fire that destroyed the Intensive Care Unit of Patel Welfare Hospital, run by a charitable trust.
“Sixteen coronavirus patients and two nursing staff were either charred to death or died due to suffocation inside a Covid-19 unit,” said Superintendent of Police Rajendrasinh Chudasama.
As many as 50 patients were undergoing treatment at the Covid-19 facility on the ground floor when fire broke out in the ICU around 1 am, probably because of short circuit, said a hospital official.
The fire was doused within an hour. Local people and the kin of patients helped in the rescue operation during which dozens of patients were shifted to other facilities by ambulance. Some were brought out of the building on wheelchairs or on make-shift stretchers.
The four-storey designated Covid-19 hospital stands on the Bharuch-Jambusar highway, 190 km from Ahmedabad.
