AMRI fire becomes India's worst hospital accident

In the wee hours of December 9, Kolkata and the nation woke up to see the worst ever hospital disaster of the country. In a devastating fire at centrally-air-conditioned seven-storey annexe building  of AMRI- a premier private hospital- 94 people, mostly patients of ICCU, ICU, Intensive Therapy Unit and Critical Care units and orthopaedic department were asphyxiated to death.

Despite claims by the hospital authorities that the fire broke out at 3.30 am and they informed the fire services promptly, the department has refuted the claims and said the fire started at 2.40 am and the hospital took an hour to inform them.

“Initially they tried to douse the fire themselves, only after realising that it was going out of control did they inform the fire brigade. Local boys who came to help them were chased away by the security guards. Had they been little prompt and co-operative a lots of lives would have been saved” State Fire and Disaster Management Minister Javed Khan said.

According to Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police (Detective Department) Damayanti Sen, the fire broke out at the basement of the hospital and along with combustible elements there a lot of cotton which created the deadly smoke mainly responsible for the deaths due to suffocation.

In the morning, when dark smoke covered the hospital, patients groped their way out only to realise that the gates were locked and had no choice but to accept death.

“The hospital staff not only chased the local people who came to help the patients out but locked the gate so that none can enter. Naturally the patients who were suffocating couldn’t go out and died” Sen said.

Mostly all the bodies, apparently intact, bore telltale marks of death owing to inhaling the foul smoke, given the blackness around the victims’ mouths. The smoke also engulfed the annexe building and people outside became unwell inhailing it. Glass shards from the broken panes were strewn around the ground floor and outside.

Apart from the five-lakh compensation announced by the hospital authorities besides free of cost treatment, Chief Minister Banerjee, who rushed to the spot immediately to supervise the rescue operation, promised Rs 3 lakh if family members of the victims, who are not well-off, made an appeal.

She stayed over at SSKM hospital where all the deceased were carried for post mortem to personally monitor the entire proceedings. By the end of the day most of the bodies were handed over to their families.

Within twenty-four hours of the accident, the state government cancelled the license of the annexe I of the AMRI- the high-cost hospital co-founded by FMCG giant Emami and real-estate major Shrachi Group, along with the state government, in 1996. 

The six directors were arrested and kept in police custody.