Minor fire at SSKM

Panic broke out when people found heavy smoke billowing out of an electricity feder-box situated just outside the surgery outdoor section in SSKM Hospital on Friday morning. Though the extent of fire was not that big, but people panicked finding a part of the hospital getting filled with smoke.

Four fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames and fighters took around half an hour to extinguish the fire. There were many patients and their family members in the ward when the smoke started billowing out.

Suranjan Santra, relative of a patient, said they heard loud sounds of explosion and got panicked.

“I found everyone running out of the ward. Even some junior doctors and hospital employees ran out. They took shelter under a shed situated outside the ward of the hospital,” Santra said.

Initially, electricians in the hospital had initiated the work of the dousing flames by sprinkling sand in the feder-box.

Fire fighters later joined them and brought the situation under control. Nothing was damaged due to the fire, but engineers were trying to find out the fault that led to the fire in the feder-box. A fire fighter said that the explosion took place in the feder-box when some devices in it caught fire after getting overheated.

Manoj Singh, another eye-witness, said the memory of the recent incident of fire in Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital in which two persons including an infant died had triggered panic among the people in the ward.