Fire halts surgeries, triggers evacuation at Salt Lake hospital

Kolkata: Surgeries halted midway and patients inside operation theatres and wards were wheeled out on stretchers and wheelchairs after a fire broke out inside the second-floor cathlab of Anandalok Hospital on Tuesday morning, triggering panic and an emergency evacuation in the middle of critical procedures.The blaze, reported started around 10 am at the hospital near Karunamoyee in Salt Lake. It quickly escalated as thick black smoke engulfed corridors and parts of the building. Flames gutted a portion of the cathlab and sections of the operation theatre before firefighters brought the situation under control. No injuries were reported.According to officials, three fire tenders rushed to the spot and began operations on a war footing. Firefighters battled dense smoke billowing from the second floor, even as hospital staff scrambled to evacuate patients from wards and operation theatres. Authorities said all floors were being checked thoroughly to ensure no one remained trapped."There were 13 scheduled surgeries today. We had just completed the sixth surgery - a gall bladder stone removal operation - when the fire alarms went off. We came out of the OT on the third floor and we could see smoke billowing from the floor below us. We immediately removed all patients from the OT and other affected wards out of the hospital," said Sanjay Gupta, a general surgeon.Hospital staff said the evacuation was carried out swiftly despite the chaos.Sanjukta Jhajharia, secretary of Anandalok Hospital, said: "Our fire-fighting system was apt and we operated on a war footing. We undertake regular fire drills. We had around 50 in-house patients. There were another 70-odd patients in the outdoor unit. We had enough security personnel in place who evacuated all of them out of the building to our annexe building right behind the hospital."Officials alleged even as the firefighters arrived later than usual, the in-house staff removed the patients by themselves without causing any harm to any of them."Flames could be seen from one of the windows on the second floor and the fire alarm had started ringing. Within minutes, the entire area was covered with smoke," said Dolly Roy, a clerical staff member of the hospital. "Our staff started breaking open the glass windows to let the smoke out.Several patients and their relatives were later seen sitting on the road outside the hospital, visibly shaken after the sudden evacuation. Officials said the main building was shut after the fire and that it would reopen after completion of forensic officials and a green signal from police and fire dept.Cops confirmed that the hospital had been fully evacuated. Preliminary findings by the fire dept suggest an electrical short circuit in the air-conditioning system inside the cathlab or operation theatre may have triggered the blaze. "The fire was confined to just one room," the official said.
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