Two patients in Telangana were killed on Monday after a fire broke out in Warangal's Rohini Super Specialty Hospital.
The duo, identified as 45-year-old Chetti Kumaraswamy and 67-year-old Mallamma, asphyxiated to death after a nitrogen cylinder burst, which resulted in several oxygen cylinders also exploding, TOI reported.
Though the exact cause of the mishap is yet to be established, the police suspect that a leakage in the intensive care unit (ICU), may have led to the fire.
“Suddenly, the gas started leaking and fire broke out. Within minutes, the entire operation theatre was engulfed in fire and smoke spread to other rooms,’’ a member of the hospital staff told TNIE.
"There were 199 patients in the hospital at the time of mishap and we shifted all of them to six other hospitals in the city. They are all safe. Preliminary inquiries revealed that there was a leakage of oxygen cylinder which caused fire. There were also reports of breaking of window panes on the third floor. Thick smoke emanated from the floor. We rushed fire tenders to the hospital immediately and extinguished the fire,” Warangal commissioner of police G Sudheer Babu told Hindustan Times.
However, the hospital said that it had adequate fire safety measures in place, which prevented a major mishap.
Dr Vijaya Chander Reddy, a member of the hospital management told Deccan Chronicle, “We called up other nearby hospitals and requested them to accommodate some of the patients. We shifted them in ambulances. We were able to save all the patients except one."
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari, Warangal Urban District Collector Amrapali Kata and Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu visited the hospital and took stock of the situation.
The Deputy CM also said that a thorough probe would be conducted into the incident, to ascertain what went wrong, and who is to be blamed for the mishap.