A fire erupted in a hospital maternity ward in Islamabad on Wednesday, killing 14 infants, Pakistan authorities said, blaming a faulty air conditioner for the blaze.
The dawn fire broke out on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the capital’s premier public hospital, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), the Islamabad district office said in a statement. The statement gave a death toll of 14, who, according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, were all infants.
Witnesses described chaotic and harrowing scenes, including intense smoke, broken glass, a slow response from emergency services, and guards reportedly preventing them from leaving the ward.
Khurram Mehmood, 40, told AFP he lost his three-day-old daughter in the blaze and that rescuers took hours to arrive. He said his wife had been in the ward and that everyone was taken out while families sat on the road waiting for help.
Jaweria, a woman who said she lost her infant in the fire, said the door to the neonatal intensive care unit was locked, and demanded to know why doctors had left the children there.
Witness Abdul Ghafoor told AFP the fire spread very quickly and that there were babies as young as one day old inside. He said he went into the hospital to try to save patients but could not reach the maternity ward, describing thick black smoke and trapped patients, and said rescue teams arrived almost two hours after the fire started.
Sohail Ashraf, the Islamabad chief commissioner, said the emergency call was made just before 7:00 am (0200 GMT), with rescue and police teams reaching the scene immediately and bringing the fire under control.
Another witness, who did not give her name, said hospital security had tried to stop people from leaving, forcing people to break down doors while rescue teams broke windows to control the fire.
