Taiwan Hospital Fire: Multiple Deaths, Several In Critical Condition

UPDATE: 6:00 a.m. EDT — According to an initial investigation by the New Taipei Fire Department, the fire was caused by a short circuit in a wire connected to a mattress in a long-term care ward at the hospital. The short circuit happened in ward 7A23 on bed 235.

The Fire Department attributed the death toll to three factors — mattresses in the ward were flammable, the hospital staff did not close the doors in the ward where the fire broke out and did not inform the fire department until nine minutes after it broke out. However, Hsueh Jui-yuan, deputy minister of Health and Welfare, defended the staff saying they were pre-occupied with saving seriously-ill patients by moving them to safer parts of the hospital, local media Focus Taiwan reported.

Original story

A fire that broke out in a hospital in Taiwan's New Taipei City on Monday morning killed nine people and injured 16. According to local reports, among the injured, 10 were in critical condition while the others were slightly wounded.

Around 36 people, including 33 patients, two employees and a nurse were evacuated and the injured were transferred to other hospitals for emergency treatment. So far, three of them have showed signs of recovery.

The fire started in a patient ward on the seventh floor of the Weifu hospital at 4.36 a.m. local time (4.36 p.m. EDT) and the local residents and several patients' relatives reportedly heard a loud explosion before the start of the fire. Reports suggest an oxygen tank might have exploded, thus causing the fire.

The fire was extinguished an hour later after 208 firefighters were sent to the scene.

The government said William Lai, the Premier of the Republic of China, was overseeing rescue efforts, and added an investigation into the cause of the fire has been launched, Reuters reported.

"We will review the cause of the incident to prevent a similar situation from happening again,” Lai said.

Some reports suggested the fire could have been started by an electrical fault in a moveable bed and or the sprinkler system could have malfunctioned. The New Taipei fire department Chief Huang Te-ching, however, denied the reports and said the cause is being investigated.

"The sprinkler device was on but there's some distance between its location and where the fire started so the fire couldn't be immediately put out," he said, Channel New Asia reported.

CCTV footages released to local media showed staff rushing through the corridors, carrying patients in their arms to evacuate them.

In a similar incident in 2012, a fire swept through a nursing home inside a hospital in southern Taiwan, killing 12 patients and injuring over 60. Health officials confirmed the victims died of smoke inhalation.

"It was pitch black and the heavy smoke was unbearable, it's really horrifying," a person who escaped the fire then said, BBC reported.

The fire was extinguished within 45 minutes with the help of 30 fire engines.