Kolkata: One of Kolkata’s better-known super-specialty hospitals turned into a gas chamber in the early hours of Friday after a basement fire pumped toxic fumes through the centrally-air-conditioned building. At least 89 of the 164 patients have died and over 50 were injured, some of them seriously. Three staff at the Advanced Medicare & Research Institute (AMRI) hospital in Dhakuria are among the dead.
Most of the fatalities were in the ICU and ITU, where patients choked to death, still hooked to life support systems and in wards where people lay immobilized with broken limbs in casts. Most others died a horrible slow death, banging on the glass walls and desperately sucking in air from cracks in the windows, as the hospital staff kept the gates locked and refused to let local residents and the victims’ kin mount a rescue operation.
Locals say at least one patient jumped to his death, bringing back memories of the Stephen Court tragedy last year when many young techies jumped off the burning building on Park Street to die on the pavement.
The 190-bed AMRI hospital, among the expensive ones in the city with an impressive roll of specialists, had another fire in 2008. Still, fire prevention equipment had not been installed. Sources say that more recently the fire department had objected to the inflammable goods stored in the basement, designed for a parking lot, and wanted it removed. The hospital, built over seven levels, sought three months for this but did little. Nothing happened. And the fire department did not bother to ensure that the basement was cleared. The criminal callousness proved to be the death sentence for 89 patients.
BLUNDERS, NEGLIGENCE LED TO HORRIFIC TRAGEDY
Hospital staff played down risk, tried to control fire on own
Call to the fire brigade went very late. First SOS seems to have gone to police who informed fire brigade
Hospital gates locked, had to be broken down. Firemen had
no hydraulic ladders to reach the upper floors (no lessons learnt from Stephen Court fire)
Inflammable goods — including oxygen cylinders & biomedical waste — stored in basement meant to be a parking lot. Hospital had promised to sort it out in Sept
VIPs, including CM Mamata Banerjee, rushed to the spot since early morning,
complicating rescue operations Worst Infernos
360 died in fire at annual school event in Dabwali, Haryana on
Dec 23, 1995
91 children burnt alive at school in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu on July 16, 2004
89 and counting — toll at Kolkata’s AMRI hospital on Dec 9, 2011
64 visitors at trade fare died in Meerut on
Apr 10, 2006
59 cinema-goers died at Uphaar cinema hall during screening of 'Border' on
June 13, 1997 Disaster Hours
1.30am | Patients’ kin, slum dwellers nearby see smoke in basement, alert guards
1.45am | Relatives not allowed to get in, guards say they will take care of the “small fire”. Patients told to go back to sleep as smoke spreads through A/C vents
2.10am | Fire brigade called. Slum dwellers tie patients to themselves, climb down ladders
2.30am | Firemen arrive, spend next 45 minutes trying to break open the gates
3.30am | Fire under control but smoke blinds workers. Firemen move in but it’s too late
6am | First hydraulic lift arrives
9.45am | Mamata Banerjee arrives. Crowd goes berserk to reach her, police rain blows Poor rescue efforts pushed up Kolkata hospital toll
All the deaths were due to suffocation, which means that many lives could have been saved, had the rescue effort started earlier. The fire department was informed 40 minutes after the fire had started. Victims’ kin and locals said the hospital staff fled, leaving the patients to their fate. But the management denies this and claim employees saved many lives.
According to sources, the hospital staff initially played down the risk and tried to tackle the fire on their own. Residents of a nearby slum and patients’ kin saw smoke billowing out of the basement around 1.30am and alerted the hospital security, who asked them not to bother.
“The guards said it wasn’t a big deal and refused to react even when the smoke became denser. Soon, we could hear thumps from the upper floors and looked up to see patients banging on the sealed windows. Still, the security staff would not budge. We pleaded to be allowed into the compound so that we could rescue the patients but in vain,” said Asit Haldar, one of the first to raise the alarm.
There are reports that some patients woke up on smelling smoke but were told to go back to sleep. The smoke was so intense that slum dwellers could feel their lungs burning in their homes but the hospital staff took their time calling for help. A precious 40 minutes were lost. The SOS to the fire brigade went at 2.10am.
Bamboo ladders were brought out of homes. Young men wrapped their faces in wet cloth and started climbing up to the panic-stricken patients. Initially, the rescuers would tie patients to their bodies and bring them down. But when the situation grew more desperate, they started making hammocks out of bedsheets to bundle the patients and throw them to waiting arms below, say witnesses.
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