Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 infants
A fire erupted in a hospital’s maternity ward in Islamabad on Wednesday, killing 14 infants, Pakistani authorities said, with the prime minister calling for an investigation.
The fire broke out on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the public Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the Islamabad district office said in a statement.
The statement gave a death toll of 14, who according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were all infants.
Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi expressed “deep grief and sorrow over the deaths of 14 infants” in separate statements.
“Such a situation involving children is irreparable,” the prime minister said.
Authorities have not identified the cause of the fire.
Fires in large buildings are frequent in Pakistan, often due to poor safety laws and building codes as well as lax enforcement.
Frequent incidents
In January, more than 65 people were killed in a shopping center fire in the port city of Karachi.
At least 11 people were killed in another shopping mall fire in Karachi, in 2023.
In 2021, at least 16 workers died after a factory fire in the same city.
In 2012, at least 250 laborers died at a garment factory in Baldia Town, in western Karachi, when a fire engulfed the facility. The building had no fire escape.
