Official: At least 23 die in hospital fire in eastern India

NEW DELHI: A fire broke out late Monday at a private hospital in a city in eastern India, killing at least 23 people, India's federal health minister said.Minister JP Nadda disclosed the death toll from the fire at the Sum Hospital in the city of Bhubaneswar in an interview with the Times Now TV news station. Doctors at two local hospitals told the Press Trust of India news agency that 22 people were dead on arrival at their facilities. They said more than 20 people were being treated for injuries. The slight discrepancy in casualty figures could not be resolved.

BB Patnak, the director of Capital Hospital, told PTI that most of the victims were patients being treated at Sum Hospital's first-floor intensive care unit who were using ventilators and suffocated after the fire spread to the ICU.Police and fire fighters broke windows and worked with hospital staff and volunteers in a massive rescue operation to evacuate more than 500 patients from the hospital, an eyewitness and hospital officials told PTI.

Ramesh Manjhi, a senior fire official, told the New Delhi Television news channel that the fire had been brought under control by late Monday night.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the victims in a Tweet and called the tragedy "mind numbing."

Authorities in Odisha State directed local hospitals to take in patients from Sum Hospital and ordered an investigation into the fire, PTI said.

Incidents like this aren't unheard of in India, where public safety norms are routinely flouted. In 2011, a major blaze engulfed AMRI Hospital in the city of Kolkata, killing 89 people.

UPDATED:

Fire in private hospital in Bhubaneswar kills 14

BHUBANESWAR: At least 14 people died on Monday when a fire broke out at a private hospital in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, officials said.

The fire erupted inside the dialysis ward of the SUM hospital's critical-care unit in the state capital Bhubaneswar, public health officials said.

Ambulances ferried more than 120 patients to other facilities for treatment, officials said while firemen brought the flames under control.

Some patients were still in critical condition.

"We are trying our best to save lives," said Arti Ahuja, principal secretary of Orissa's health and family welfare department.

She confirmed the death toll of 14 though local news channels said more than 20 people had died.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the tragedy "mind-numbing" and directed the federal health minister to facilitate transfer of those injured to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a group of government hospitals.

"Deeply anguished by the loss of lives in the hospital fire," Modi said on Twitter.