Death toll climbs to 92 after fire at Iraq hospital COVID-19 ward

BAGHDAD - The death toll from a fire at a hospital coronavirus ward climbed to 92 on Tuesday as anguished relatives buried their loved ones and lashed out at the government over the country's second such disaster in less than three months.

Health officials said scores of others were injured in the blaze that erupted Monday at al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiriyah.

The tragedy cast a spotlight on what many have decried as widespread negligence and mismanagement in Iraq's hospitals after decades of war and sanctions.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi convened an emergency meeting and ordered the suspension and arrest of the health director in Dhi Qar provice, the hospital director and the city's civil defense chief. The government also launched an investigation.

The prime minister called the catastrophe "a deep wound in the consciousness of all Iraqis."

In the holy city of Najaf, the dead were laid to rest. Mourning families stood over coffins in the mosque to say one last prayer.

Their tears were tinged with anger, with some saying the disaster could have been prevented. They blamed both the provincial government and the central government in Baghdad.

Ahmed Resan, who witnessed the blaze, said it began with smoke. "But everyone ran away — the workers and even the police. A few minutes later there was an explosion," he said. He said firefighters arrived an hour later.

"The whole state system has collapsed, and who paid the price? The people inside here. These people have paid the price," Haidar al-Askari seethed at the scene.

Blankets are strewn among burnt hospital beds at the ravaged coronavirus isolation ward of Al-Hussein hospital after a massive fire overnight, in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, on July 13, 2021. (Photo by ASAAD NIAZI/AFP via Getty Images)

Overnight, firefighters and rescuers — many holding flashlights and using blankets to extinguish small fires — searched through the ward in the darkness. As dawn broke, bodies covered with sheets could be seen laid out on the ground outside the hospital.

Ali Khalid, 20, a volunteer who dashed to the scene, said he found the bodies of two young girls locked in embrace.

"How terrified they must have been, they died hugging each other," he said.

Distraught relatives searched the burned-out ruins as well amid charred blankets and belongings.

Officials at one point said the fire was caused by a short circuit but gave no details. Another official said the blaze erupted when an oxygen cylinder exploded. The officials were not authorized to talk to the news media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

An aerial picture shows the damage after a massive fire overnight engulfed the coronavirus isolation ward of Al-Hussein hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, on July 13, 2021. (Photo by ASAAD NIAZI/AFP via Getty Images)

The ward, opened three months ago, contained 70 beds in three large halls. Maj. Gen. Khalid Bohan, head of Iraq’s civil defense, said the building was constructed from cheap, flammable materials.

In April, at least 82 people died at Ibn al-Khateeb hospital in Baghdad when an oxygen tank exploded. Iraq’s health minister resigned over the disaster.

Doctors have decried lax safety at Iraq's hospitals, especially around oxygen cylinders, and have described the institutions as ticking bombs.

Iraq is in the midst of another severe COVID-19 surge. New cases per day peaked last week at 9,000. Iraq’s war-crippled health system has struggled to contain the virus. The country has recorded over 17,000 deaths and 1.4 million confirmed cases.

Fear and widespread mistrust of the public health sector have kept many from seeking hospital care.

Ali Abbas Salman, who rushed to evacuate his COVID-19-stricken father from after the fire broke out, swore he wouldn't take the older man back to a hospital.

"He wants me to take him home. He said, `It’s better to die of coronavirus than being burned alive,'" Salman said.

The disaster is likely to stoke public discontent toward Iraq’s political establishment ahead of October elections, said Marsin Alshammary, an Iraq specialist at the Brookings Institution. Nasiriyah has been at the heart of past revolutions in Iraq.

"Given this entire atmosphere built around the city," she said, "you can imagine that something as tragic as this event, where people who were already vulnerable were killed in a needless accident, will create more public anger."

RELATED: Bangladesh factory fire: 52 dead after workers trapped by illegally locked door

——

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed.