A fire, which broke out in a hospital in western India early on Friday, has killed about thirteen coronavirus patients.
The inferno occurred amid an extreme surge in infections that have left the South Asian country short of medical care and oxygen.
On Thursday, India reported more than 314,000 new COVID-19 cases, the world’s worst daily total. This represents a jump in infections that has already driven the nation’s fragile health systems to the brink of collapse, with understaffed hospitals overflowing with patients and critically short of supplies.
The fire at a hospital in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai happened forty-eight hours after twenty-four COVID-19 patients on ventilators died due to an oxygen leak in a hospital in Nashik, another city in Maharashtra state.
The fire on the second floor intensive-care unit was put out and some patients requiring oxygen were moved to nearby hospitals, Associated Press reported the chief medical director of a hospital in the area as saying.
Some ninety patients are currently in the hospital, about 70 kilometres north of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.
The cause of the fire is being investigated, the medical official said.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported on Friday that an explosion in the air conditioning unit of the hospital’s intensive care unit preceded the fire.
The day’s fire comes amid a massive surge in coronavirus infections in Maharashtra state, the worst hit in the country.
The 314,835 infections recorded on Thursday brought India’s tally to exceed 15.9 million cases since the pandemic began. This is the second-highest tally in the world behind the US.
India’s overall coronavirus death toll stands at 184,657, according to the country’s Health Ministry.