Odisha hospital blaze: Fire alarm was off, staff ignored initial sparks, finds probe

BHUBANESWAR: The fire alarm system at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack was switched off and hospital staff ignored sparks in the AC duct, shortly before a raging blaze turned three floors of the govt facility into an inferno in just four minutes, killing 12 patients, a probe report said on Tuesday.

A critical four-minute window — between 2.50 am and 2.54 am — early on Monday proved fatal with tell-tale signs of hospital staff failing to inform the emergency fire services, a fact-finding team led by development commissioner Deoranjan Kumar Singh revealed.




“The hospital staff did not take the initial spark from an overhead air-conditioner around 2.40 am seriously. The fire station — located inside the SCB campus, barely 200 metres from the trauma building — was not alerted. Instead, a hospital staff member on duty informed hospital authorities first, losing crucial time,” a source said.

By 2.50 am, flames rapidly engulfed the one-room ICU. The next few minutes proved deadly as 12 of the 14 patients in the room succumbed. Of the 23 patients evacuated, seven were from the second ICU in the same building. All the 20 injured persons admitted in hospitals are being monitored.

Neither the fire alarm nor the sprinkler system — which should have activated automatically — worked. The harried staff attempted to douse the flames themselves using fire extinguishers, losing more precious minutes, sources involved in the inquiry said.

“The alarm system was allegedly switched off and we will look into it as to how it could be the case,” the source said.

Following a 2024 Orissa high court order on a PIL, SCB had installed fire-fighting systems on a war footing. “However, not a drop of water came from the sprinklers,” a source said. The court had even allowed tendering for fire-safety work in 33 buildings, despite the Model Code of Conduct being in force ahead of the 2024 elections.

Hospital staff and some attendants displayed extraordinary courage, entering the smoke-filled ward to help shift patients. Nursing officer Bibekananda Badajena, who rescued seven patients, said the first step was removing tubes and using Ambu bags (manual resuscitators) for ventilation during transfer.

“All ICU beds have Ambu bags that provide life-saving manual ventilation when transporting ventilator-dependent patients,” Badajena said. Patients were then carried to the fire exit and taken down ramps using stretchers, with help from guards, attendants and locals.

On Tuesday, chief secretary Anu Garg reviewed fire readiness in hospitals with district collectors and directed them to ensure all compliance measures are completed within this year, promising there would be no resource crunch to address the “legacy issue.”

Officials said the fire was contained within 20-30 feet of the same room. Had it spread further, casualties could have been far higher. The fact-finding team had inspected the trauma care unit on Monday, hours after chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi constituted a probe to find the cause of fire.

Retired district judge Laxmidhar Biswal, who is heading a judicial inquiry commission, visited the hospital and has begun examining the sequence of events leading to the tragedy.