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Four killed in Ukraine hospital fire
KIEV, Feb 4, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Four people died in Ukraine after a fire
tore through the intensive care unit of an infectious diseases hospital that
was treating coronavirus patients, police said Thursday.
It was the latest in a spate of deadly fires in Ukraine, which are not
uncommon in the ex-Soviet republic due to poor compliance with safety
regulations and ageing infrastructure.
The fire broke out just before midnight on Wednesday on the ground floor
of the five-storey building in the southwestern city of Zaporizhzhya.
Footage released by the emergency services showed firefighters entering
the smoke-filled building in darkness and carrying out bedridden patients.
“The fire killed four people, including a medical worker,” regional
police said in a statement.
Three of the victims had been diagnosed with coronavirus and were on
ventilators, according to the regional governor quoted by the Interfax-
Ukraine news agency.
Firefighters were able to save eight people.
Among them were two hospital staff who were hospitalised with burns, the
hospital’s chief physician Volodymyr Shynkarenko said as quoted by 061.ua
local news website.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known but Shynkarenko
confirmed that medical equipment had caught fire.
Police said they were investigating a violation of safety measures.
President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his “sincere condolences” to the
families of the victims and sent Health Minister Maksym Stepanov to the
scene, the presidency said in a statement.
“Saddened to hear of the tragic fire… My deepest condolences to those
who have lost loved ones,” Hans Kluge, the regional director for Europe at
the World Health Organization, said on Twitter.
The regional governor said that on Friday the Zaporizhzhya region will
observe a day of mourning for the victims of the blaze.
In January, 16 people were killed in a fire at an illegal nursing home
in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
In December 2019, a fire killed 16 people and injured 30 at a college in
the Black Sea city of Odessa.
Seventeen people died in May 2016 when a makeshift home for the elderly
outside the capital Kiev caught fire.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1936 hrs