A fire broke out at an ophthalmology hospital in Lajpat Nagar following a short circuit in an air conditioner on Wednesday, police said. While one building was gutted in the fire, the flames had started to engulf a second building of the hospital before they were extinguished.
Around 15 patients were present at the hospital for OPD consultation and four for surgery along with the staff members when the fire broke out, said Rajesh Deo, DCP (South east). They were evacuated without any loss to life, he added.
The Eye7 Chaudhary Eye Center is located in Block P of Lajpat Nagar IV, right on the Ring Road.
This is the second major fire in a private hospital in Delhi in the last nine days. A fire at Baby Care New Born Hospital, a neonatology center in Vivek Vihar, killed seven newborns on May 26.
The owner of the Vivek Vihar hospital, Dr Naveen Khichi, and the doctor on duty, Dr Aakash, were subsequently arrested by the police.
“Around 11.30 am, our control room received a call regarding a massive fire in this (Lajpat Nagar) hospital. We rushed immediately,” said Deputy Chief Fire Officer SK Dua who was leading the Delhi Fire Service (DFS) operation.
Mohit Singh, branch manager at the adjacent Canara Bank, said he saw smoke billowing out of the hospital. “We came out running. Everything was burning. There was smoke everywhere. Nothing was visible,” he added.
The DFS pressed 20 fire tenders into action. “When we arrived, we saw that the fire had already spread to the roof of the adjacent building and the parking area behind the hospital,” DFS officer Dua said. “It took us almost an hour to douse the flames and bring the fire under control,” he added.
Divided by a narrow path, the hospital functions out of two buildings along the Ring Road. The portion of the hospital that was gutted is a single-storey structure built over a basement and a stilt parking lot.
The building was completely gutted in the fire with only the skeleton of the structure standing once the DFS called off its operation. There were burnt desks, melted chairs, blackened walls and iron rods almost falling off the ceiling.
The hospital is situated in a congested locality, with several private hospitals, a bakery and other business establishments running from buildings in the lane.
A large crowd had also gathered at the site with neighbors spending several anxious hours worried that the fire could engulf the densely populated locality.
DFS director Atul Garg said the hospital did not need a fire safety NOC (no-objection certificate) as the building was within the 9-meter-height criteria. “It’s built from the basement to the ground floor only,” he added.
Following the Vivek Vihar fire, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj had said fire safety measures such as water sprinklers and automatic smoke alarms would be made compulsory for all hospitals, irrespective of the number of floors they have.
According to records with the DFS, both the buildings of the hospital were rented premises with permission of only 10 beds.
Divisional officer, DFS, Manoj Kumar Sharma told The Indian Express: “We are probing whether the hospital had taken basic fire safety measures and installed extinguishers and smoke alarms.”
Neither the owner of the hospital, Dr Sanjay Chowdhary, nor anyone from the administration was present on the spot when the fire fighters were seen extinguishing the flames.
Only a driver of the hospital, wearing a shirt with the hospital’s logo on it, could be seen sitting amid a crowd at a distance. “Fortunately, I was not here when the fire broke out in the building,” he said.
He further said there are around 150 people – the staff and the patients – inside the building at any given time. “Everyone was lucky this time. All are safe”.