Iraqi officials announced Sunday that at least 82 people had died in an explosion in an oxygen cylinder in a COVID-19 ward.
At least 28 of the dead were coronovirus patients who were on ventilators after a fire at Ibn al-Khatib Hospital on Saturday, according to the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission.
The Health Ministry said at least 200 people were rescued from the scene, including several burned bodies killed by paramedics and witnesses, who were rushed to help.
“People were jumping … doctors fell on cars,” said Ahmad Zaki, who had gone to visit a family member, but ended up rescuing people from the fire that “spread like fuel” on the second floor.
“Everyone is jumping. And I kept going up from there, got people and then came down.
While many patients were taken to other hospitals, relatives of the missing were still gathering at the scene and begging for help in finding their loved ones.
“Please, two of my relatives are missing. … I am about to die (without news about them), ”a family woman posted on social media following an unruly search for members of her family, who were in the ICU.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Qadimi held an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the Baghdad Operations Command coordinating Iraqi security forces, according to a statement on his Twitter account.
He then fired the director general of the local Baghdad health department, as well as the director of the hospital and the director of engineering and maintenance.
“Negligence in such cases is not a mistake, but a crime for which all the negligent parties have to bear the responsibility,” he said, giving the officers only 24 hours to present the results of an investigation.
In a statement, the United Nations Jeanine Hanes-Plaschart in Iraq expressed “shock and pain” over the incident and called for stronger security measures in hospitals.
Iraq’s health system, ruined by decades of sanctions, war and neglect, has been enhanced during the coronovirus crisis.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 1 million infections in the country with more than 15,200 deaths.
With post wires
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