Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
At least 50 people reportedly died after a fire in a coronavirus isolation ward at a hospital in city of Nasiriya in Iraqi. About 70 are injured in the fire likely caused by an oxygen tank explosion police said Monday.
While rescuers combed the smoke-charred building in search of more bodies, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held urgent meetings with senior ministers and ordered the suspension and arrest of health and civil defense managers in Nassiriya. PM’s office said in a statement.
The manager of the hospital was also suspended and ordered to be arrested, the statement further detailed. Already decimated by war and sanctions, Iraq’s healthcare system has struggled to cope with the coronavirus crisis, which has killed 17,592 people and infected more than 1.4 million.
“Health crews carried charred bodies out of the burning hospital while many patients were coughing from the rising smoke,” news report said.
Health officials at Nassiriya said search operations at the al-Hussain coronavirus hospital were continuing after the fire was brought under control, but thick smoke was making it difficult to enter some of the burnt wards.
“Raging fires have trapped many patients inside the coronavirus ward and rescue teams are struggling to reach them,” a health worker told Reuters before entering the burning building.
Initial police reports suggested that an oxygen tank explosion inside the hospital’s COVID-19 ward and was the likely cause of the fire, a cop said.
“I heard a big explosion inside the corona virus wards and then fire erupted very quickly,” said a hospital guard who was recusing injured patients.
IN a similar incident in April, a fire caused by an oxygen tank explosion at a COVID-19 hospital in Baghdad had killed at least 82 people and injured 110 others.
Angry relatives of the patients gathered in front of the hospital to protest. They clashed with police, setting fire to two police vehicles.
