Fire at Covid Care Centre kills 11; AP govt announces Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia to families of deceased

VIJAYAWADA: At least 11 patients including two women died and several were feared trapped when a fire accident took place at a hotel converted into Covid Care Centre by a private hospital in Vijayawada on Sunday early morning.
This comes close on the heels of a similar fire accident in Gujarat in a Covid care centre that claimed at least eight lives last week.

According to the preliminary reports, there were over 30 Covid-19 persons being treated at the centre by employing a dozen medical personnel when the fire accident broke at Swarna Palace Hotel at around 5 am on Sunday.

Several fire tenders and ambulances were pressed into action to bring the flames under control and to shift the patients to nearby hospitals, even as the inpatients suffered severe suffocation caused by the heavy smoke inside the hotel rooms.

Expressing shock over the fire accident, Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials to expedite rescue operations and offer better medical treatment to those suffered, while ordering an inquiry into the accident. A statement from the chief minister office said the preliminary inquiry revealed that a private hospital in Vijayawada acquired the hotel on lease to use it as a Covid Care Centre.

The Andhra government has also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh each to the families of the deceased.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called chief minister Reddy over phone to enquire about the accident and "extended all the possible help and assured support to the families of the victims," said a CMO statement.

Andhra Pradesh Fire Director Jayaram Naik confirmed that 11 Covid-19 patients died in the fire accident. He said no fire safety permissions were obtained at the time of converting the hotel into a Covid Care Centre by the private hospital. Necessary action will be initiated against the hotel management after the probe into the accident, he said.

Vijayawada Police Commissioner Srinivasulu, who rushed to the accident spot to supervise the rescue operations, said the police received a call on the fire accident at around 5.15 am. "We are trying to bring out safely all those trapped in the hotel", he said.

Some patients, medical staff, and hotel employees were seen jumping out from the second and third floors of the five-storied hotel, even as the fire brigade rescued some 17 patients from the hotel.

The Covid-19 patients were being treated on the third, fourth, and fifth floors of the hotel, which apparently caught fire due to an electric short-circuit on the first floor and flames spreading quickly to other floors.

Efforts were on to bring the patients out safely and shift them to another hotel and to extend medical treatment to those injured in the fire mishap, said police.