“At least 73 people have died after a fire tore through an Indian hospital this morning.

“Many of the elderly patients died after they were trapped by smoke as the fire took hold in the multi-storey building in Kolkata, say officials who warned the death toll could rise.

Some reports suggest that the fire was ignited by failure or overload of electrical switchgear. “The blaze started in the AMRI Hospital’s basement, where hospital chemicals and medical waste were stored, but quickly spread to the upper floors.

The nature of the bulk of soft clinical wastes are that they might readily catch fire, and that fire would propagate rapidly. It is perhaps worthy of note that effective fire protection is rare and most internal waste stores have no fire protection beyond a single smoke detector. Larger installations at treatment sites have almost nothing at all.

Though fire is fortunately rare in these circumstances, is this something we are missing?

see 70 dead as blaze tears through Indian hospital ‘after medical waste in basement
catches fire’