Infant among 6 dead in Mumbai hospital blaze

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, December 17

Six persons, including a two-month old baby, were killed after a major fire broke out in the state-owned Employees' State Insurance Corporation Hospital at Andheri in suburban Mumbai on Monday this afternoon.

More than 100 others have been injured. While most of them were suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation, a few had jumped out of the building's windows in panic, according to officials.

While one of the victims from the hospital were declared brought dead, three died while undergoing treatment at the Seven Hills Hospital and two at the civic-run Cooper Hospital later in the evening, police said.

The other victims of the fire have been sent to public and private hospitals across the city, Mumbai's mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar told reporters outside the hospital.

Fire officials said the hospital building only had a provisional no-objection certificate from the fire department. A new of the wing of the hospital was being constructed nearby and both buildings were to be connected on all floors. 

Officials said the fire may have been caused by the construction equipment used for the building the new wing of the hospital.

According to the police and fire brigade, the fire was reported at around 4.20 pm from the fourth floor of the hospital. "By 5 pm we fire was treated as Level Four and we rushed in 10 fire engines and water tankers," a fire brigade spokesman said.

Police officials said they were still in the process of identifying the victims.

Patients and relatives who throng the hospital rushed to get out and crowded the passages. "There were 166 patients admitted to the hospital and there were many relatives visiting them," a police official said. There are more than 326 beds in the hospital.

By late evening, all the people in the ground-plus-five hospital were rescued and cooling operations of the building was on, fire officials said.

Chief of Fire Brigade P S Rahangdale told reporters that the fire had broken out in the third floor of the structure. The fire brigade managed to confine the fire to the third floor though smoke had spread throughout the building, he added.