An early morning fire killed eight and injured 18 people at the second site of the Jen Ai Hospital (
Many of the the patients at the hospital were unable to move without help. Others fled the burning building in complete darkness.
As of press time investigators have not ruled out arson as a cause of the fire.
PHOTO: AFP
The fire broke out on the first floor of the four-story building at around 2:15am, where 26 patients, most of them seriously ill and unable to move by themselves, and 12 care-givers were asleep on the fourth floor.
Chen Chiu-fen (
Only two nurses and one doctor were on duty at the hospital when the fire broke out. One nurse surnamed Lin said she was inspecting the wards on the fourth floor at the time. She first saw flames coming out of a room on the first floor.
Lin and another nurse, surnamed Wei, helped three patients who were able to walk on their own to get out of the hospital first. They tried to rescue other patients on the fourth floor but were deterred by heavy smoke and flames.
One-hundred and twenty firemen arrived in 15 fire trucks at the hospital not long after receiving the fire report and extinguished the fire at 4:30am.
An unidentified witness said he heard the noise of a quarrel before the fire took place, but the nurses denied the allegation.
The firemen, however, found scorched electric wire on a chair in the injection room which was the most seriously damaged.
Eight people choked to death and another 18 suffered from smoke inhalation.
Vice Director-General of the Department of Health (
Yang said it was the most serious hospital fire in the country in the past 10 years.
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