At least 19 people were killed when a fire broke out at a private hospital in India’s eastern state of Odisha on Monday, officials said.
The fire erupted in the dialysis ward of the SUM hospital’s critical-care unit in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, public health officials said.
Preliminary information showed the fire started after an electrical short-circuit, media said. Many of the 19 dead were elderly people who had suffocated to death, C. R.
Nayak, the state’s director of health services, told Reuters. Ambulances took more than 120 patients to other hospitals, officials said, while firemen battled to control the flames.
Some of the wounded patients were still in critical condition. (Reuters)