Kolkata: Two people were killed and many others feared trapped as a government hospital in West Bengal caught fire on August 27.

The fire broke out in a room next to the children’s ward on the third floor of the Behrampur Medical College Hospital in Murshidabad district, some 240 km north of Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state.

One of the victims is a woman who was the caretaker for the children.

Several patients broke windows to escape from the hospital.

Fire tenders have reached the hospital and are trying to douse the fire. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.

“A fire broke out in the hospital. Two causalities were reported. Fire has been brought under control. There is no need for panic,” chief medical officer of health (CMOH) S Saha said.
He said an AC unit was the source of the fire.

Soon after the fire broke out, patients were seen coming out of the hospital while some infants were taken out of the hospital ward.

The fire originated from an AC machine, according to Suhrita Pal, medical supervisor and vice principal of the hospital.

“We have fire prevention and fighting equipment in the hospital. We have to find out how it happened,” she added.
The hospital is typically crowded during day, and at any point of time it has at least 200 patients and their relatives present.

Flames were first noticed at the first floor of the hospital near the children ward. Soon, the stretch was filled with thick smoke, amid which parents and relatives began running out carrying the children admitted in the ward.

According to early reports, about two dozen people were affected by the smoke.

The OT and the male ward are located on the ground floor.

The hospital was upgraded to a medical college in 2010-2011. Construction work in some facilities is going on.

Memories of a devastating fire that claimed more than 90 lives in 2011 in AMRI Dhakuria are still alive in public memory.

Earlier this week, a fire a broke out in the OT of a subdivisional hospital in Katwa of Burdwan district. That blaze, too, was triggered by an AC.