Mumbai hospital fire: 10 fire engines were sent to the spot as efforts began to evacuate the patients
A two-month-old baby is among eight killed in a major fire at a Mumbai hospital on Monday. Over 140 people have been rescued till now. Six were killed on Monday, and two died this morning. A few of the injured are very critical.
One of the dead is a woman who fell from a crane while being rescued, reports suggest. Most of the deaths were allegedly because of suffocation.
The fire brigade received a call around 4 pm about the blaze at the government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital located at Marol in suburban Andheri, an official from the city civic body's disaster management cell said.
The hospital failed a fire safety check just a fortnight ago, an official told NDTV. Whether the hospital had an official fire safety audit is being investigated.
Ten fire engines were sent to the spot as efforts began to evacuate the patients.
Mumbai hospital fire: The cause of the fire is not known yet though a short circuit is suspected
The patients have been shifted to various hospitals including Cooper, Holy Spirit Hospital, P Thackeray Trauma Hospital, Hiranandani, Siddharth and Seven Hills hospital.
The cause of the fire is not known yet though a short circuit is suspected. "The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is responsible for the fire audits, whether they carried out fire audits or not, that will be investigated," Mumbai Mayor V Mahadeshwar told news agency ANI.
But MD Ogle, deputy chief fire officer at the state industrial body, told NDTV that 15 days ago, the hospital had failed the fire safety test. The fire department had found out that the sprinkle and detection system were not in line with provisions.
The hospital had inflammable material on the ground floor, staff have revealed, because of construction work on a new wing. The material caught fire and the flames spread rapidly. Firefighting equipment were also allegedly not in place, an official said.