Iraq Interior Ministry: 82 killed in Baghdad hospital fireplace

Iraq’s Interior Ministry stated Sunday that 82 folks died and 110 had been injured in a catastrophic fireplace that broke out within the intensive care unit of a Baghdad hospital tending to extreme coronavirus sufferers.
Negligence on the a part of hospital authorities has been blamed for the Saturday evening fireplace, which preliminary studies counsel was triggered when an oxygen cylinder exploded within the ward of Ibn al-Khatib hospital. Iraq’s prime minister fired key hospital officers hours after the catastrophic incident.
Among the useless had been not less than 28 sufferers on ventilators battling extreme signs of the virus, tweeted Ali al-Bayati, a spokesman of the nation’s unbiased Human Rights Commission. The fee is a semi-official physique.
Firefighters rushed to battle the flames that raged throughout the second flooring of the hospital. Civil protection groups put out flames till the early hours of the morning.
Ambulances transported dozens of wounded. The Health Ministry stated not less than 200 folks had been rescued from the scene.
Doctors on the scene had been frazzled by the chaos unfolding round them. They stated quite a few burned our bodies had been carried out by paramedics from the hospital flooring.
The fireplace got here as Iraq grapples with a extreme second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Daily virus circumstances now common round 8,000, the very best since Iraq started recording an infection charges early final 12 months. At least 15,200 folks have died of coronavirus in Iraq amongst a complete of not less than 100,000 confirmed circumstances.
In response to the hearth, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi fired the director-general of the Baghdad Health Department within the al-Rusafa space, the place the hospital is situated. He additionally fired the director of Ibh al-Khatib Hospital and its director of engineering and upkeep, in line with an announcement from the Health Ministry and his workplace.
After the hearth first broke out, Al-Khadhimi held an emergency assembly on the headquarters of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi safety forces, in line with an announcement on his Twitter account.
In the assembly he stated the incident amounted to negligence.
“Negligence in such matters is not a mistake, but a crime for which all negligent parties must bear responsibility,” he stated. He gave Iraqi authorities 24 hours to current the outcomes of an investigation.

U.N. envoy to Iraq Jeannine Hennis-Plasschaert expressed “shock and pain” over the incident in an announcement and referred to as for stronger safety measures in hospitals.