AMMAN —
The Foreign Ministry on Sunday expressed
“the deepest condolences” to the government and people of Iraq over the victims
of a fire that broke out in a hospital in Baghdad overnight.
اضافة اعلان
At least 82 people were killed and 110 injured in a fire on
Saturday at a hospital in southeastern Baghdad that had been equipped to house
COVID-19 patients, medical sources at three nearby hospitals said, according to
Reuters.
In a statement sent to
Jordan News, ministry spokesperson Daifallah
Al-Fayez stressed the Kingdom’s “complete solidarity with Iraq during this
painful incident,” wishing the injured a swift recovery.
The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Diyala Bridge
area of the Iraqi capital occurred after an accident caused an oxygen tank to
explode, the sources told Reuters.
Many ambulances were rushing towards the hospital, ferrying
away those hurt by the fire, a Reuters photographer nearby said.
Patients not injured in the incident were also being
transferred out of the hospital, the medical sources said.
The head of Iraqi civil defense unit said the fire broke out
in the floor designated for the pulmonary intensive care unit and that 90
people have been rescued from the hospital out of 120, state news agency INA
quoted him as saying.
Major General Kadhim Bohan added that the fire has been put
out.
Iraqi Prime Minister
Mustafa Al-Kadhimi ordered an
investigation into the incident in the early hours of Sunday.
"Such an incident is evidence of negligence and
therefore I directed that an investigation be launched immediately and for the
hospital's manager and the heads of security and maintenance to be detained
along with all those concerned until we identify those negligent and hold them
accountable."
Several victims' families were still at the hospital hours
after the fire had been put out, having been unable to locate them elsewhere.
An eyewitness who was visiting his brother when the fire
broke out described people jumping out of windows as the fire, caused by the
explosion of an oxygen bottle, spread quickly throughout the unit equipped to
house COVID-19 patients.
Patients' relatives scrambled to save their loved ones.
"In the beginning, there was an explosion...The fire
spread, like fuel," said one relative of one of the patients who was there
at the time of the explosion.
"The smoke reached my brother. My brother is sick, I
took my brother out to the street. Then I came [back]...To the last floor, that
did not burn. I found a girl suffocating, about 19 years old, she was
suffocating, she was about to die."
"I took her on my shoulders and I ran down. People were
jumping...Doctors fell on the cars. Everyone was jumping. And I kept going up
from there, got people and come down again.”
Iraq's healthcare system, already ruined by decades of
sanctions, war and neglect, has been stretched during the coronavirus crisis.
The total number of people infected with COVID-19 in Iraq is
102,5288 including 15,217 deaths, the health ministry said on Saturday.
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