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At Least 25 Killed in Fire at Saudi Hospital
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has just informed that all the Indians stuck in Jizan General Hospital are safe, where an accidental fire killed 25 people and injured 100 on Thursday.
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The country’s deputy health minister was quoted by the Al Sharq Al Awsat newspaper on Friday as saying 141 people had been injured in the fire – the latest in a series of accidents that have killed hundreds of people at Saudi public facilities.
The catastrophe occurred in the intensive care unit and the maternity ward on the primary flooring of the hospital, Xinhua information company added.
The civil defense agency said 25 people died but a later statement by Health Minister Khalid al-Falih put the death toll at 24.
Photographs published on Twitter showed intense black smoke and blaze which appeared to have severely damaged the interior of the three-storey hospital.
Jizan is the capital of the Jizan region in southwest Saudi Arabia, located immediately north of the Yemen border.
Earlier this week a rocket fired from Yemen towards Jazan was intercepted by Saudi Arabia, reports said, although there is no indication Thursday’s fire is related to the conflict.
Later, in an update, it said the blaze had been extinguished and an investigation was under way.
The teams were able to evacuate the children and patients from the intensive care unit without problem, the health ministry said on its Twitter account, but most casualties were on the hospital’s upper floors.
Some Saudis took to social media to complain of what they said was inadequate infrastructure in the area.
Firemen milled around the hospital’s smoke-blackened rooms and clinics in the aftermath of the blaze, inspecting charred gurneys and debris hanging from the ceiling, footage broadcast on Saudi television showed. This tweet not only comes as a relief for the relatives of the Indians stuck in then fire that was doused, but also for the Saudi authorities who had tried their best to secure all the patients.
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Some 21 civil defence teams helped extinguish the fire, according to the agency. “Even though we have little hope” for this, wrote another user.