Iraqi officials said the hospital where 64 people died in the fire was built with flammable materials

An Iraqi official said that a hospital fire broke out on Monday, killing 64 people and injuring 100 people because the building was built with flammable materials.

According to the Associated Press, Major General Khalid Bohan, the head of the Iraqi Civil Defense Department, stated that the coronavirus ward of the Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiriyah City was built with materials that could easily catch fire.

Early reports suspected that the fire was caused by a short circuit or an explosion of an oxygen cylinder. Many people blamed the incident on the provincial and federal governments of Zigarh on the grounds of mismanagement and negligence.

“The entire national system has collapsed. Who has paid the price? People here. These people have paid the price,” said Heydar Ascari at the scene of the fire.

The government launched an investigation, and Prime Minister Mustafa Kadimi ordered suspension and arrested Jigal’s health director, hospital director and the city’s civil defense director.

For more reports from the Associated Press, please see below:

On Tuesday morning, the distressed relatives were still looking for traces of their loved ones, looking for burnt blankets and fragments of belongings in the charred remains of the ward. The black skull of a deceased female patient was found in the ward.

Overnight, firefighters and rescuers—many of whom only used flashlights and blankets to put out small fires that were still smoldering in some places—were frantically searching the ward in the dark. At dawn, on the ground outside the hospital, there were corpses covered with sheets.

Earlier, officials stated that the fire was caused by a short circuit, but did not provide more details. Another official said that when an oxygen cylinder exploded, the fire broke out. These officials declined to be named because they have no right to talk to reporters.

The new ward that just opened three months ago has 70 beds.

In the nearby Shiite holy city of Najaf, mourners are preparing to bury some of the victims.

This is the second time this year that a fire in an Iraqi hospital has caused the death of a coronavirus patient. In April, an oxygen tank in Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khateeb hospital exploded, causing a fire and killing at least 82 people.

This incident exposed the general negligence and systematic mismanagement of Iraqi hospitals. Doctors condemned the lax safety rules, especially around the oxygen cylinders.

Iraq is in the midst of another severe COVID-19 surge. Last week, the daily coronavirus infection rate peaked, reaching 9,000 new cases. After decades of war and sanctions, Iraq’s health authorities have been working hard to control the virus. Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 17,000 people have died from the virus out of 1.4 million confirmed cases.