10 infants dead, 7 rescued in Maharashtra's Bhandara after fire breaks out in hospital unit for newborns

Bhandara: Ten newborn babies died after fire broke out in the Special Newborn Care Unit of a hospital in Maharashtra in the wee hours on Saturday, doctors said.

All the infants were between a month and three months old, a doctor said.

Ten children died in a fire that broke out at Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) of Bhandara District General Hospital at 2 am today. Seven children were rescued from the unit: Pramod Khandate, Civil Surgeon, Bhandara, Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/bTokrNQ28t

— ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2021

Fire broke out in the Bhandara district hospital at around 2 am, he said. There were 17 babies in the unit and seven were rescued, he added.

Another doctor said a nurse first noticed smoke coming out from the neonatal section of the hospital and alerted doctors and other staff who reached there in five minutes.

Fire brigade personnel rescued seven babies from the "inbound ward" of the unit but could not save the 10 other babies, he said.

The cause of the fire in the four storeyed building is not known but could have been the result of an electrical short circuit, he said.