VIDEO: Fire at a hospital kills 11 COVID-19 patients in India
A view of a hospital's COVID-19 ward that caught fire in Ahmednagar. Reuters
Flames engulfed a hospital in western India on Saturday, killing 11 COVID-19 patients, officials said.
The latest fire is among a series of similar incidents in India's Covid care wards.
Officials said about 20 patients were in the intensive care unit of the hospital in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state when the fire broke out.
Most of the dead were over 60 years old.
The newly established hospital section for COVID-19 patients is charred.
Maharashtra's chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has ordered an official investigation into the fire and safety measures at the hospital, which is located 250 km from the provincial capital, Mumbai.
The widespread outbreak of Covid-19 in India in April and May pushed India's underfunded health system to the brink of collapse.
But several hospitals treating Covid patients have been hit by catastrophic fires.
Sixteen COVID-19 patients and two nurses were killed in a fire that broke out in a hospital in Gujarat in May. Police said the fire was caused by an electrical fault in the intensive care unit.
In April, 13 patients died in a clinic in Mumbai, days after another fire in a hospital in the city killed 22 people.
