BAGHDAD – More than 80 people died yesterday when a fire ripped through a hospital for Covid-19 patients here, sparking outrage and the suspension of top officials overseeing Iraq’s crumbling health services.
Medics said the blaze at eastern Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khatib hospital began when badly stored oxygen cylinders blew up.
Many of the victims were on respirators and burned or suffocated in the resulting inferno.
“It took just three minutes for the fire to reach most floors” of the hospital, said the fire service.
The Health Ministry said 82 people were killed and 110 wounded, while the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said 28 of the victims were patients who had to be taken off ventilators to escape the flames.
The blaze tore across multiple floors in the middle of the night, as dozens of relatives were visiting patients in the intensive care unit, said a medical source.
Bakr Qazem, son of one the victims, said he was at the hospital when he felt “a strong explosion”.
“We saw a fire and were not able to save the patients,” he tearfully said from Najaf, the Shiite holy city where he had taken his father’s body for burial.
Throughout the day, funeral processions filled the city, where the vast majority of Iraq’s Shiites are buried.
According to Iraq’s fire service, “the hospital had no fire protection system and false ceilings allowed the flames to spread to highly flammable products”.
It added that firefighters had been late reaching the hospital, in the remote outskirts of Baghdad.
Negligence
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi suspended Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi – who is backed by powerful Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr – as part of a probe that includes the governor of Baghdad.
The fire triggered outrage on social media, with a widespread hashtag demanding the health minister be sacked.
The Hezbollah Brigades, one of Iraq’s most radical pro-Iran factions, yesterday evening demanded that the government quit.
Kadhemi, in a tweet, urged Iraqis “to be united in solidarity and refrain from playing politics with this national catastrophe”.
He has also declared three days of national mourning and put aside 10 million dinars (RM28,267) for the family of each victim.
Parliament said it will devote its session today to the tragedy.
Witnesses said the evacuation of the hospital was slow and chaotic, with patients and their relatives crammed into stairwells as they scrambled for exits.
“It was the people (civilians) who got the wounded out,” said Amir, 35, adding that he had narrowly saved his hospitalised brothers. – AFP, April 26, 2021
