Dozens killed by blaze at India hospital
At least 61 people have been killed in a fire at a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, senior officials have said.
The fire erupted in the basement of the hospital early on Friday morning.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters that 61 bodies had been recovered from the hospital by early afternoon.
Firefighters smashed the glass walls of AMRI Hospital and used rope ladders to rescue people trapped on the first and second floor of the building.
Television images showed rescuers taking several patients on stretchers to a nearby hospital.
Police said 20 fire engines raced to the scene and firefighters brought the blaze under control after several hours. But the first three floors are the building were still filled with smoke and rescuers were searching for others who may still be trapped.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
"It's a very serious offence and we will take the strongest action," said Banerjee at the scene.
It took firefighters more than an hour to arrive after the blaze started, said Pradeep Sarkar, a witness. His uncle was taken to the hospital hours earlier, after suffering a heart attack at home and he was moved to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Ms Banerjee said that while the fire brigade had difficulty getting to the building, police arrived quickly to help with the rescue effort.
Dozens of fire engines eventually arrived at the hospital. By mid-morning, the fire was under control and most of the patients had been evacuated to other hospitals in the area, said Javed Khan, the state fire services minister.
Sirhad Hakeem, a minister in the West Bengal government, said the hospital basement was being used as a storage area, although it was originally planned as a car park.
Government officials accused the hospital staff of abandoning the patients and fleeing the building after the fire broke out.
"It was horrifying that the hospital authorities did not make any effort to rescue trapped patients," said Subrata Mukherjee, state minister for public health engineering. "Senior hospital authorities ran away after the fire broke out."
Fire officials blamed the narrow streets in the neighbourhood for the delay in reaching the fire, saying they made it difficult for unwieldy fire appliances to get close to the building.
S Upadhay, a senior vice president of the AMRI hospital company, said there were 160 patients in the 190-bed hospital annex at the time of the blaze.
