A tragedy was averted in North East Delhi’s GTB Hospital on Wednesday when a fire broke put on the sixth floor of the eight- storey building.
Fifteen fire tenders were rushed to the spot and doused the flames in 45 minutes. The floor houses a patient ward from where nearly 16 patients were evacuated in emergency situation. Even though, no casualties were reported in the incident but it caused lot of inconvenience to the patients admitted in the general ward. The blaze erupted in the
1,000-bed hospital around 11.05 am on Wednesday and spread after some old mattresses caught fire from an adjacent store room.
Preliminary investigation revealed that a short circuit in the centralised air conditioner plant in the hospital is suspected to be the cause of fire. The fire spread to cables on the sixth floor in a corridor outside the general ward.
The mattresses and old furniture kept in the store room were charred. However, before the fire could spread to the ward and other floors, it was brought under control.
The blaze was reported from the AC plant installed in the storeroom of the hospital on the sixth floor around 11.05 am on Wednesday. The store room was located between the general ward where around 16 patients were admitted.
“A call was made to the police control room around 11.10 am and after receiving the call, 15 fire tenders were rushed to the spot. The fire was suspected to have been caused after a short circuit in the air condition,” a senior police officer said.
Police said that the fire was controlled by firefighters within 45 minutes, averting a major tragedy. No casualties and not any kind of injuries have been reported due to the fire.
“Fire fighting operation was carried out under the supervision of deputy chief officer (Fire) Vipin Kanter and initially fire fighters were facing a lot of difficulties as over 100 relatives of the patients were present at the spot. later, the firefighters controlled the situation within some minutes,” the officer added.
After the short circuit in the air condition that have sparked the fire, the situation turned so panic and fearing that they would get trapped inside, all the patients, their relatives and hospital staff started running out.
The relatives of the patients took them out in the gallery. One of the hospital employees, Rajesh said that he heard some noise outside the ward and saw that people were screaming and running.
According to Medical Superintend of GTB Dr Rajpal, they would be augmenting their fire fighting mechanism in the hospital as the existing system was out of order and beyond repair.