Pakistan hospital fire: Report finds no fire alarms or sprinklers at neonatal unit where fire killed 14

An official inquiry into a Pakistan hospital fire that killed 14 babies last month has found the neonatal unit lacked fire alarms and sprinklers, while firefighters reported that escape routes were "locked or obstructed".

"The doors were locked so they had to break through the windows to enter. Even after getting inside, the doors leading towards the ward were locked."

The report from an investigative committee headed by a retired senior civil servant found "systemic and institutional failure" which meant what began as an electrical spark became a "catastrophe".

Door was locked at Pakistan hospital where fire killed 14 babies, witnesses sayPublished26 August

For many inside the hospital on the morning of 26 August, the first warnings were shouts.

"The entire ward was filled with smoke, we could not see anything," he told the BBC.

Another nurse, Razia Noreen, is then seen rushing into the ward, emerging seconds later with one of the babies who turned out to be the only one to survive.

Hivsa Walid, her newborn niece and sister-in-law were in the ward next door. Hours later she told the BBC that they had heard a loud commotion and then realised it was a fire when they saw smoke emerging from the unit where the babies were sleeping.

On the day of the fire, authorities suggested the fire had started from a spark in the ward's air conditioner.

The air conditioning units had undergone maintenance, but the report says this is not the same as a safety check. Back in 2018, the hospital's air conditioning units had been approved to be replaced and upgraded, but eight years later this hadn't happened.

Ghafoor said that he was part of a group of seven or eight who tried to find a way to relieve the thick smoke; they managed to break glass panels at the end of the corridor before firefighters arrived.