 "From SMU Bhuabaneswar to AMRI, a list of major hospital fire outbreaks in India")
Twenty two patients died and many others were injured in a major fire accident at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar on Monday evening. The death toll is likely to rise further, with the injured being shifted to various hospitals in the city.
This is not the first time a hospital fire has caught attention. There have been several such incidents in the past.
Earlier this year, a fire broke out in Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal. The August 2016 fire killed two staff members of the hospital. The eye witnesses said that there was no disaster management in place to prevent an unfavourable incident. Faulty electric wiring was the cause of the fire.
In November 2015, a major fire broke out at Shishu Bhawan hospital in Cuttack that gutted machines worth Rs 11 lakh, and left one child severely injured. The hospital was already in the news for months over the deaths of several infants due to negligence of doctors.
Faulty electric wiring caused a fire outbreak at PBM Hospital, Bikaner in January 2013, injuring three infants and damaging property. The wires could not carry the load due to which the mishap occured.
The infamous AMRI hospital fire incident in Kolkata is still afresh. On December 2011, a major fire broke out in the hospital, leaving 89 dead. The fire began in the basement, where highly inflammable material was allegedly stored. Eyewitnesses said they first spotted and reported smoke streaming from the hospital around 3 a.m, but the first fire engine arrived only two hours later.