BAccording to preliminary reports, at least 41 people died in a fire in a hospital in southern Iraq. State TV reported on Monday evening. Amar Bashar, spokesperson for the Nanzigarh Provincial Health Bureau, confirmed the figure. After the fire was extinguished, the bodies of the victims were found. People died of severe burns. According to hospital personnel, 16 patients could have been rescued from the burning ward.
The hospital is located in Nasiriyah City, Dhi Qar Province, about 370 kilometers south of the capital Baghdad. Bashar said there were 63 Covid patients in the hospital’s isolation department.
Witnesses said there was an explosion
Witnesses reported to the German News Agency that the fire was caused by the explosion of an oxygen cylinder, but initially it was not officially confirmed. The cabinet said that Prime Minister Mustafa Kasimi held an emergency meeting with several ministers and security officials to investigate the cause of the fire.
Witnesses said that when black smoke rose above the building, dozens of people ran in to help people in the hospital. The head of the civil defense department Kadhem Bohan said in a statement that civil defense teams from neighboring provinces were summoned to Nasiriya to help and managed to put out the fire.
In April alone, a devastating fire broke out in a corona clinic in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing 82 people and injuring 110 others. The then Minister of Health, Hassan al-Tamimi, resigned in response to a fire, which was allegedly caused by improper storage of oxygen cylinders.
