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Bagdad, Iraq (CNN) — At least 64 people died in a fire at a hospital treating coronavirus patients in the southeastern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, according to health officials.
Some 50 people were also injured in Monday night’s fire that is believed to have started after oxygen tanks exploded in an intensive care unit treating COVID-19 patients. The fire has already been extinguished.
Al-Hussein Hospital was established at the beginning of the pandemic to treat coronavirus patients and has quarantine stations on site. Nasiriyah, in Dhi Qar province, is about 360 kilometers southeast of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.
The country’s president, Barham Salhi, blamed the incident on “corruption and mismanagement” and called those responsible to account.
“The catastrophe of the Al-Hussein Hospital in Dhi Qar, and before that, the Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad, is the result of persistent corruption and mismanagement that underestimated the lives of Iraqis and prevented reform of the performance of the institutions, “Salhi said in a post on Twitter on Tuesday.
A large fire at Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital, which started after oxygen tanks exploded in a COVID-19 unit, killed at least 82 people in April.
“A strict review of the performance of institutions and the protection of citizens is necessary,” Salih added.
During an emergency meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi ordered the suspension and arrest of the director of health in Dhi Qar, the director of the hospital and the director of civil defense in the province, according to a statement from his office.
A high-level government investigation into the incident has also been launched.
Speaker of Parliament Mohammed al-Halbousi tweeted that the fire shows a failure to protect lives and that “it is time to put an end to this catastrophic failure, and Parliament will change today’s session to examine options on what happened.”
Since 2019, hundreds of Iraqis have died in violent protests across the country against government corruption, unemployment, and a lack of basic services, including electricity and clean water. Successive governments have failed to stabilize Iraq after decades of sanctions and wars.
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