Mumbai hospital fire: Toll rises to 10 after one more person succumbs to injuries; two arrested

The toll in a fire at a government hospital in Mumbai, that left 175 injured, rose to 10 on Thursday after one more person succumbed to their injuries. The fire had broken out in the government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital at Marol in suburban Andheri on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_5762711” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ten fire tenders were pressed into service and the firemen are making efforts to douse the blaze in ESCI hospital in Andheri, Mumbai. Image credit: Twitter/@ANI[/caption] An official said 19 of the injured were taken to civic-run Cooper Hospital where two were declared brought dead. Another 33 were shifted to Seven Hills Hospital in Andheri where three were declared dead, he said. Forty were taken to Holy Spirit Hospital, Andheri (East), where one of them was declared brought dead, the official said. Some of the injured were discharged, while the others were undergoing treatment in different hospitals with some of them in the ICU, he said. The development comes after two persons were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the fire. “Those arrested were identified as Nilesh Mehta and Nitin Kamble. They are supervisors of a construction company, which was overseeing the construction of a new building of the hospital,” a senior official said. The duo was booked under IPC sections 304 A (causing death by negligence), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and others. Recalling the horror, a patient, Santosh Kadam, said, “I was on the fourth floor and was going to the ground floor to get my MRI done. Suddenly, nurses and other staffers started shouting and told us to vacate the building since a fire had broken out. I along with my other relatives came down safely.” Another patient Girish Patel said, “I saw smoke emanating from the third and fourth floors. There was thick layer of smoke. People panicked and started running helter-skelter before hospital staff came and advised us to vacate the floor quietly.” According to another civic official, over 160 patients were admitted in the hospital at the time of the blaze . Milind Ogle, the deputy chief fire officer of the MIDC area, told PTI, “Our team had found some lacunae in an under-construction building coming up adjacent to the hospital and suggested their rectification.” “The hospital administration was in the process of complying with our suggestions. Meanwhile, this incident took place in the old hospital building,” Ogle said. The 325-bed hospital was constructed in 1970s, the officials said, adding police and hospital authorities have vacated the building till further notice. Fire brigade personnel had to break the glasses of the building’s facade to evacuate stranded patients, they said. With inputs from agencies