82 People Killed in Fire Caused by Exploding Oxygen Tank at COVID Hospital

A fire ignited by an oxygen canister that exploded at a hospital treating COVID patients in Baghdad has killed 82 people, with 110 others injured.

A fire broke out in the Ibn al-Khatib hospital’s ICU unit on Saturday night, spreading across the whole floor.

Patients were rushed out on hospital beds and transferred to nearby medical facilities.

Footage taken by gathered crowds and shared on social media showed people fleeing the building as firefighters tried to control the blaze. The fire was not under control until Sunday morning.

Mustafa Kadhimi, Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, has suspended the country’s health minister and ordered an investigation into the incident to be completed within five days.

Kadhimi blamed the fire on “negligence.”

Speaking to state-run TV station al Iraqiya, Maj. Gen. Khadhimi Bohan, the head of Iraq’s civil defence, said that the area where the fire broke out where COVID patients were being treated did not have any fire safety measures in place.

“If there had been smoke detectors, the situation would have been different,” he said. 

Many family members of patients gathered around the hospital on Sunday, waiting for news on their loved ones. 

Kadhimi has promised to compensate families, and vowed to "identify the negligent people and hold them accountable, regardless of their titles.”

“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,” a statement from the prime minister’s office said.

The Iraqi healthcare sector is extremely under-funded, following years of economic embargoes, corruption and mismanagement. Last month Iraq received nearly 650,000 doses of the COVID vaccine under the global Covax programme. But the vaccination rollout faces issues due to a lack of trust in the government.

Saturday’s fire has provoked nationwide anger, which could give Kadhimi enough ammo to fire several corrupt officials.

Still, it would take more to go after health minister Hassan al-Tamimi, who is backed by the influential and controversial Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq’s power-sharing government.