Emergency personnel assisting the people evacuated after a fire broke out at the intensive care unit of a COVID-19 hospital in Constanta, Romania. Photo: Reuters
9 people have been killed following a fire outbreak at an Intensive care unit in a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country’s third deadly hospital fire in less than a year.
Reuters report that Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, having brought in additional teams from nearby counties.
Video footage showed patients jumping out of windows from the hospital’s lower levels and firefighters carrying people out.
Interim Health Minister Cseke Attila said 113 patients were in the hospital at the time of the fire, including 10 in the intensive care unit.
Emergency response teams have installed a mobile triage unit near the hospital and 50 patients have so far been evacuated and transferred to other hospitals.
In February, a fire killed 4 patients at a COVID-19 hospital in the capital Bucharest. Last November 10 people died in an intensive care unit at the Piatra Neamt county hospital.