Six held over horror hospital blaze
Six hospital officials have been arrested on charges of culpable homicide after a fire that killed 88 people, Indian police said today.
Officials had accused staff of abandoning many patients to die of suffocation from the smoke during the blaze at the private AMRI hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
The six charged with culpable homicide were directors from the hospital company.
“It was horrifying that the hospital authorities did not make any effort to rescue trapped patients,” said Subrata Mukherjee, West Bengal public health minister. “Senior hospital authorities ran away after the fire broke out.”
The hospital expressed regret over the deaths, and denied any violations of safety measures.
As the fire raged, rescue workers on long ladders smashed windows in the upper floors to pull trapped patients out before they suffocated from smoke inhalation, while sobbing relatives waited on the street below.
Rescue workers took patients on stretchers and in wheelchairs to a nearby hospital.
Moon Moon Chakraborty, who was in the hospital with a broken ankle, called her husband S. Chakraborty at home to tell him a fire had broken out.
“She had died by the time I reached the hospital,” her husband said.
Police said 73 bodies were pulled out of the hospital and another 15 people died from their injuries.
Rescue officials said many of the dead suffered from smoke inhalation.
At the time of the blaze, there were 160 patients in the 190-bed hospital annex, Upadhyay said.
The loss of life was “extremely unfortunate and painful”, but the facility followed strict fire safety measure, he said. He promised to give 200,000 rupees (around €2,800) to the relatives of the dead.
“We deeply sympathise and share the pain and agony of the family members of the patients admitted here,” he said.
The expensive AMRI private hospital was recently rated one of the best hospitals in the city by an Indian magazine. However, safety regulations are routinely ignored at hospitals throughout India.
