At least 14 infants were killed in a fire at a state-run hospital in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Wednesday, the prime minister said, with the health minister attributing the tragedy to a blast in the nursery ward. The blaze started ​around 7 a.m. (0200 GMT) at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, on the third floor of ​the hospital’s mother and child health ward, said broadcaster Geo TV, which put ⁠the death toll at 15. “The fire erupted after a blast in (an) air conditioner”, Health Minister Mustafa Kamal ​told Geo TV, adding that ample oxygen in the ward helped it spread. The incident is among the ​deadliest hospital fires in recent years in the country, where government healthcare is subsidised but facilities are under-resourced and overburdened. Watchdogs have frequently criticised state-run facilities as mismanaged. Television footage showed a gutted, blackened ward with scattered equipment and smoke still ​rising. There were 16 newborns in the ward when the fire broke out, one of whom ​was rescued, Geo reported.

Full report : At least 14 infants killed in Islamabad hospital fire.