Massive Fire In Medical College In UP, 58 Patients Evacuated

Fifty-eight patients were evacuated when a fire broke out at a government hospital here, an official said on Friday.

The fire broke out at the Gorakhpur BRD Medical College's medicine ward number 14 when there were 58 patients in the ward, of which 12 were in ICU on ventilators, he said.

District Magistrate Krishna Karunesh who rushed to the hospital said there was no casualty due to the incident. However, one death did take place in the hospital around the time of the fire.

According to college principal Ganesh Kumar, it took place in another ward and was not related to the fire.

Two fire tenders pressed into service to put the blaze out managed to douse it by around 1.30 am, about three hours since its breaking out.

Karunesh said the fire possibly broke out due to a short-circuit in the electricity board of the medicine ward. He said the patients were promptly shifted to ward number 11.

A probe committee with the Chief Fire Officer and electrical safety officers as members has been constituted to find out the actual cause behind the incident, he said.

Ganesh Kumar said the power supply to the ward was cut immediately which prevented the fire from spreading to other areas.

The ward was filled with smoke after mattresses kept inside it caught fire.

Kumar said mattresses were kept in the store of the ward because the medicine ward sometimes becomes overcrowded with patients.

He said a committee has been formed to sound out ways to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

After getting the report of the committee, we are planning to propose to the government for an agency or staff to take care of fire and other safety measures, the principal added.

IG J Ravindra Gaur, Commissioner Anil Dhingra, SSP Gaurav Grover, SP City Krishna Kumar, and SO North Manoj Kumar Awasthi also rushed to the spot in the wake of the incident.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)