Iraq
Civil defense teams putting out a fire at Nasiriyah's al-Habboubi hospital on July 17, 2021. Photo: Iraq's Civil Defense Directorate
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A fire was put out at Nasiriyah’s al-Habboubi hospital on Saturday, the Iraqi Civil Defense Directorate has said, less than a week after a blaze killed scores of people in the city’s al-Hussein hospital.
Civil defense teams rescued three workers in fires that broke out in two containers built with flammable sandwich panels “violating safety and security instructions,” the directorate said in a statement published on Facebook.
One of the containers was used to treat cancer patients and the other to house hospital workers, the directorate said, noting that there were material damages but no casualties.
“The Civil Defense Directorate has repeatedly warned the Ministry of Health not to use sandwich panels in the construction of medical halls to treat patients due to the danger of these materials in spreading the fire quickly and the difficulty of extinguishing the fire if it ignites,” the statement added.
Sixty people were killed in the fire at al-Hussein hospital earlier this week, according to the Ministry of Health. Dhi Qar authorities placed the death toll at 92.
The fire was reported to be caused by exploding oxygen tanks in the COVID isolation ward, a medical source told AFP. Health directorate spokesperson also said it was caused by “the failure to properly handle oxygen bottles.”
The director of Dhi Qar’s health directorate, the hospital director, and the head of provincial civil defense forces have been suspended pending an investigation into the fire and, arrest warrants for 13 health officials were issued over the fire.
In another deadly blaze on April 24, the explosion of oxygen cylinder sparked a catastrophic fire in Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khatib hospital for coronavirus patients, killing around 130 people. The health minister resigned soon after, and several senior officials were suspended.
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