Kolkata: A fire broke out at Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) on the Southern fringes of the city on Tuesday afternoon. No injury has been reported in the incident.
Three fire tenders were pressed into action to douse the flames. It triggered panic among the patients and hospital staff. The fire was brought under control after one and half hour.
According to the preliminary investigation, the Fire department officials suspect an air-conditioning machine caught fire inside the genetic research wing. Some staff of the hospital spotted smoke billowing out of a room and reported the matter to the police and fire brigade. Tension broke out among patients in the adjacent building of the hospital. The security personnel of the hospital took part in the rescue operation. They evacuated the genetic research wing to check any untoward incidents.
Fire fighters spotted the source of the fire and it was later doused. It was learnt that an air-conditioning machine was damaged in the incidents. The hospital authorities are also apprehending that some research papers in the laboratory were also destroyed in the fire. According to a senior official of CNCI, the staff managed to resist the fire from spreading to other parts of the hospital building. The fire was spotted in the air-conditioning machine. The genetic research wing and laboratory was immediately evacuated. The exact cause of the fire and the extent of the damage are yet to be confirmed. A detailed probe has been initiated. It may be mentioned that there was a fire incident at Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine triggering panic among patients and visitors on November 12.
Similarly, many patients were evacuated and a huge amount of medicine was damaged after a fire broke out at the pharmacy of state-run Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on October 3.