 | | Mamata speaks to relatives of patients at AMRI. Picture by Sayantan Ghosh | Calcutta, Dec. 9: Mamata Banerjee today worked overtime to minimise the miseries of people who lost their dear ones in the AMRI Hospitals blaze. From managing the crowd at the hospital, to averting a stampede-like situation, to ensuring speedy release of bodies from SSKM Hospital after post-mortem, the chief minister led from the front. She cancelled all her other programmes. "This is the first time I have seen a chief minister taking the lead in crowd-control," a senior police officer said when Mamata picked up a loudspeaker to calm down the relatives of victims at AMRI in Dhakuria. The crowd swelled the moment the chief minister reached the hospital at 9.50am. By then, grief-stricken families, running from pillar to post for information, had become impatient and local people, who started the rescue operation, were ready to start an agitation. The police tried to throw a cordon around Mamata and resorted to a mild baton-charge to disperse the crowd and the journalists towing her. Mamata, who is in charge of the police department, yelled at the force: "Keu lathicharge korbena (There must not be any lathicharge)." This helped avoid a stampede-like situation. Mamata appealed to the crowd: "This is an extremely sad incident…. There is no consolation for death but I still request you to co-operate with the administration." According to police estimates, over 3,000 people had gathered around the private hospital. Traffic came to a standstill on Dhakuria bridge as onlookers from neighbouring areas such as South End Park, Southern Avenue and Panchanantala poured in. "Her appeal worked and it helped avoid a law-and-order problem," another police officer said.  | | Mamata at SSKM on Friday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal |
Having tackled the immediate crisis, the chief minister turned her attention to the other problems. Although she had plans of visiting the affected annexe building, she dropped the idea as a sea of people were following her. For the next 20 minutes, Mamata sat down near a closed tea stall and spoke to police officers and the relatives of patients. "The rescue operation on the fourth floor is still under way. Please co-operate," she told the restive crowd. Suddenly, Chandana Adhikary, a woman in her mid-twenties, broke through the police cordon and fell at Mamata's feet. She told the chief minister that she did not have any information about her brother Kashinath, who was admitted in the third floor of the affected building with cardiac problems. "I can't find my brother. I have spoken to so many people but no one can tell me anything. Please do something," Chandana told the chief minister. Mamata consoled her and whispered something to police commissioner R.K. Pachnanda. Some policemen immediately stood up and spoke to the woman. As officers brought in information about more deaths, Mamata shook her head in dismay. "The number of deaths is quite high (till then, around 40 deaths had been confirmed). This is a police case and all bodies have to be sent for post-mortem. We are sending the bodies to SSKM," she said before leaving for the government hospital at 11.40am. She reached the hospital in 10 minutes and immediately took charge. From overseeing the identification of the bodies to ensuring speedy post-mortem and organising hearse vans, Mamata did it all. "Madan (sports minister Madan Mitra), I don't know anything. Just get me 30 hearse vans from wherever you can. Inform Arup (Tollygunge MLA Arup Biswas) and call up Paresh Pal (Beleghata MLA)," the chief minister told Mitra over the phone, pacing up and down the courtyard behind the SSKM morgue. "It was for the chief minister that I could get my father's body. For over two hours since noon, there was confusion over the bodies numbered 16 and 23. She bailed us out," said S. Mullick of Khardah. Soon, Mamata left for Woodburn Ward, where her mother Gayatri Devi is admitted. Pachnanda rushed to the ward and was briefed by the chief minister. "Please see that the arrested are convicted and there are no loopholes," she told the police commissioner while walking back towards the morgue.
When life hung by a pole in a death trap | | ALIPTA JENA | | Calcutta, Dec. 9: Three patients from Mizoram, who were trapped in the massive fire that killed 89 people, mostly patients, at AMRI Hospitals in Calcutta early this morning, owe their escape from death to something that's integral to Mizo life and culture — a bamboo pole. The poles, which the patients said were reportedly in place to aid building repairs, served as their escape routes. There were eight patients from Mizoram in the hospital when the fire broke out. While three of them were safely evacuated to the hospital's unit at Mukundapur here, the rest were taken to Mizoram House at Ballygunge. James K. Lalblakliana, 43-year-old engineer from Aizawl, recounts his experience: "In all my 43 years of life, I had never been this afraid. I was admitted to AMRI, Calcutta, to be treated for bad tonsillitis and mouth ulcers. Yesterday, I was unable to sleep because of a burning pain in my throat. I woke up from a troubled sleep around 4am. I was tossing about for nearly an hour when suddenly I smelt smoke and heard the commotion downstairs. I ran out into the corridor where I saw thick black smoke everywhere. However, there was no hospital staff there to guide me," he said. "I realised there was something terribly wrong because the acrid fumes burnt my throat. I ran back into the room and shut the door immediately and tied a handkerchief around my mouth. By instinct I knew I had to steer clear of the fumes. I broke the glass panes of the windows and looked out, praying to god all the time. "All I could think of was my five sons and family waiting for me. I could see the fire-fighters below signalling to me. We were expected to use the bamboos as props to slide down, I could gather that. "I grasped the pole, sent up a fervent prayer to god and slid down with my eyes tightly closed. When I was safely down with my family, all I could do was laugh and cry. I had never laughed and cried at the same time. And I shall never forget last night," he said. In the same ward, Jonathan Malsanwa, a 17-year-old Class XII student of Boston Higher Secondary School, Aizawl, wore a dazed look and winced each time a patient nearby cried out in pain. Admitted to the hospital to be treated for hepatitis C three days ago, all he wants now is to be home for Christmas and listen to his favourite bands. "I was sleeping peacefully in my room on the third floor when my roommate woke me up from a deep slumber. I had absolutely no idea what was going on till my roommate ran out and so did I. I was half asleep and stunned to see black smoke all over the corridor. Moreover, we were not sure if any help was coming. Then we ran to the window to look for any escape route but it was difficult, as we were high up," Jonathan said. "What was worse, I could see downstairs that most people who were being brought out were wrapped in white sheets. We realised that they were dead but did not say anything to each other. Thankfully, the bamboo poles, which were put up for renovation at the hospital, served us well. The fire-fighters were using them to get the patients down to earth. I have a fear of heights but at that juncture it was either that or die. So we climbed out of the window, locked legs around the pole, gripped the pole and slid down. It was just like an adventure reality show but this one was real. Now I just want to go home. I will leave in another week or so." Thanglupuia, another patient who is undergoing chemotherapy, was resting and unavailable for comment. However, his mother and friend said they were thankful that he survived the fire as well as the disease he was battling. Zothan Mawii, a 60-year-old woman from Aizawl being treated for eye cancer, relived the horror of her struggle to find her way out of the hospital. "I was alone in a double bedroom on the third floor. I woke up around 4am and saw that my room was filled with smoke. When I got out into the corridor it was completely dark. I called my son, thinking I was going to die. I told him I would wait for someone to come and take me out of my room but no one came. My son told me to get a hold on myself and find my way down. "It is my ninth time here so I was familiar with the hospital. I headed for the main staircase and saw many other patients going the same way. I kept to the railing, covering my nose and mouth with my hand to keep out the smoke but it made me cough," she said. "All I could think while I tried to climb down the stairs in pitch darkness was that I would die in here. When I finally got out the relief was enormous. It was around 6am and my son, who had promised to be there when I got out, was there. I am grateful to be alive. It was a terror I wouldn't want anyone to live through." "There should have been more awareness among the nurses. There are supposed to be people awake all night. They did not even have smoke detectors," said Micky Zoginpuia, her son, who immediately took his mother back to Mizoram House in Salt Lake where they are staying. Ram Das, uncle of 30-year-old Sampa Chowdhury who died in the fire, said, "We are from Agartala in Tripura. My niece suffered injuries in a bus accident and was admitted here on November 11. I was staying in the waiting hall at night when I noticed the fire". He and several others asked security guards to bring down the patients, he said. "But they did not pay heed to our request," he added. | ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHANDREYEE CHATTERJEE
Fire safety alert AMRI did not bother about | | G.S. MUDUR | New Delhi, Dec. 9: India's apex agency that grants accreditation to hospitals had warned the AMRI hospital earlier this year that its fire evacuation plans were inadequate despite approvals from city authorities and mock drills, the agency's officials revealed today. More than 80 persons, all but three of them patients, died from asphyxiation at the AMRI hospital early today in what may be India's worst hospital disaster that has exposed paltry levels of preparedness for emergency evacuation. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) had kept the hospital's application for re-accreditation from November 10 of this year in abeyance because of certain "non-conformities" to expected standards, NABH officials said. "What has happened is unimaginable," said Girdhar Gyani, chief executive officer of the NABH and secretary general of the Quality Council of India. "We had specifically indicated to the hospital that its evacuation plans need to be strengthened." "There was another serious issue — the hospital did not have the required safety certification from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for two new machines it had procured," Gyani told The Telegraph. The AMRI hospital had first received accreditation from the NABH during 2008 which, following a mid-term review at 18 months, had remained valid until November 10 this year, he said. Hospital management specialists and architects involved in the design of hospitals have expressed surprise at the high number of fatalities among patients, despite the hospital having all the "right papers" from local fire and municipal authorities. "There are standard codes for fire safety and emergency response by hospital staff that should have been in place," said Meeta Ruparel, the director of Aum Meditec, a Mumbai-based hospital management consultancy, who had highlighted the need for fire safety in hospitals in India eight years ago. The National Building Code of India issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards specifies several layers of safety precautions that should prevent the loss of life during fires, said Shamit Manchanda, a New Delhi-based architect who has designed several private and government hospitals. "Ramps are crucial in the evacuation of bed-ridden patients during fires when staircases don't help and lifts don't work," said Manchanda. A hospital roof should also have a "refuge area" where patients can be moved from upper floors, said another architect involved in hospital design. "The risk of asphyxiation is reduced on the open terrace and patients get extra time," the architect said. The NABH is not a regulatory agency and can merely ask hospitals to provide the approvals it has received from local fire and building regulatory authorities, NABH officials said. "Beyond that, we examine their evacuation plans, mock drills, and staff training," said Deepti Mohan, an assistant director at the NABH. "But how (hospital) staff will react in an actual emergency, we'll never know until something happens," she said. Hospital building design and "best-practice" manuals demand that after appropriate fire-fighting infrastructure and equipment — from ramps to evacuate patients to appropriate numbers of fire-extinguishers — are in place, the staff needs to be periodically trained to respond to emergencies. "This calls more than just distribution of guidelines and manuals," Ruparel said. "Each member of the staff needs to know exactly what he or she should do when a fire breaks out and be trained to do it efficiently through regular drills," she said. A senior consultant doctor who has been at AMRI for about 10 years said he had observed sections of security and nursing staff conduct a mock fire drill and take classroom lessons over the past year. "It is very sad — I lost two of my patients — one in the ICU, one outside," said the doctor who requested anonymity. Annexe 1 loses licence, seven directors held | | KINSUK BASU AND SANJAY MANDAL |  | | Manish Goenka (in front seat) with father Radheshyam Goenka on their way to Lalbazar on Friday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya | Calcutta, Dec. 9: Mamata Banerjee today said she had cancelled the "licence" of AMRI Hospitals and police slapped a criminal case based on a complaint by the fire department, resulting in the arrest of seven hospital directors. However, later in the day, Biswa Ranjan Satpathi, deputy director of health service and hospital administration, said: "We have cancelled the licence of the affected wing of AMRI Hospitals, Dhakuria." The announcement cleared the confusion on whether the chief minister had meant to scrap the licence of the entire Dhakuria facility as well as those of AMRI's hospitals in Salt Lake and Mukundapur. "The notice has been served to the licencee, M.K. Chetri, managing director of AMRI," Satpathi said. Mamata had said earlier: "This is a tragic incident and a criminal offence. I have cancelled the licence of the hospital. The fire services department has already submitted a primary report and a probe is on. Those who are good would only be allowed to run nursing homes." Soon after the declaration, top officials of the health department swung into action, looking through the files and collecting whatever relevant information about the hospital they could. Health department officials went to annexe I, the section of the hospital that caught fire, and pasted the notice on the gates announcing the revoking of licence under Section 24/1/D of the Clinical Establishments Act, 2010. According to Section 24/1/D of the Clinical Establishments Act, 2010, if the licensing authority — the state health department in this case — or a higher authority feels that a hospital is not suitable for admission and treatment of patients, the licence can be revoked. "The hospital can appeal six months later for a licence after renovation following the guidelines. Then licensing authorities will conduct a fresh inspection," an official said. Till late on Friday night, there were 68 patients in the main building of AMRI Dhakuria, including some of the victims of today's tragedy. Partly because of the obvious panic among patients and their relatives, about 70 patients left the 190-bed main wing today. Mamata also ordered the "immediate arrest" of the AMRI authorities.  |  | | SK Todi (top), Ravi Todi |
Police teams from Lalbazar raided the offices and homes of some of the AMRI directors. A police officer said soon after they started receiving feelers that several wanted to surrender before the police. Around 3.27pm, Radheshyam Goenka and his son Manish, both hospital directors, reached the Lalbazar police headquarters in a Honda City. They were taken to the detective department's homicide wing where assistant commissioner A.K. Majumdar questioned them. Four other AMRI directors — S.K. Todi, his son Ravi, Prashant Goenka and Dayanand Agarwal — were "arrested from their houses", said joint commissioner (crime) Damayanti Sen. "Although the FIR (lodged by the fire department) did not mention any name, it held responsible the governing body of the hospital (which includes its directors), its supervisors and security staff. Our preliminary investigations revealed that the directors of the hospital were responsible for the incident." Another director, R.S. Agarwal, was arrested after he got admitted to BM Birla Heart Research Centre. "We have posted two constables at his bedside. He is under arrest," a senior officer said late tonight. The FIR lodged at the Lake police station by Deepak Sarkar, deputy director of the fire services department, blamed slackness on the part of the hospital authorities for the deaths. It charges them with attempt to commit culpable homicide, which carries a punishment of up to seven years in jail, negligence causing a fire (punishable by up to six months in jail) and common intent. Sen added that 10 hospital officials were also being questioned. A detective department team went to AMRI Dhakuria before the arrests and took down the names and other personal details of its senior officials. "In September, during a joint inspection with the police to identify the fire preparedness of the hospital, the authorities were asked to get their act in place about fire prevention arrangements at the basement. They had even given in writing that they would comply.Tar por kichhu koreni (They didn't do anything after that)," Mamata said. Police sources said the deadline to put things in place expired on December 4. "We have specifically outlined the lapses that were observed during today's fire-fighting in the FIR that was lodged with the Lake police station. There were lapses galore," said fire service director-general D.P. Tarenia. Mamata has convened a meeting at Writers' on Saturday to review the Clinical Establishment Act with chief secretary Samar Ghosh, health secretary Samar Mitra and other senior government officials. LAPSES LISTED IN THE FIR • Hospital was asked to ensure inflammable articles were not stacked in basement but it did not comply
• No arrangement for air circulation in case of shutdown in central air-conditioning • Fire alarm not in place
• Sprinklers not functional
• No training given to hospital staff to handle fire-related emergency
• Staff had never participated in any fire-fight drill.
When heal turned hell- Patients choke in sealed chambers | | ZEESHAN JAWED |  | | A patient being brought down by fire-fighters at AMRI Hospitals on Friday. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
The seven-storey Annexe I of AMRI Hospitals in Dhakuria was a chamber of death from where there was no escape. Sealed windows, shut emergency exits, missing fire safety personnel, a fire alarm that didn't go off and automatic sprinklers that failed to react even at 300-plus degrees Celsius were just a few of the factors that went against the 90 victims of the tragedy, the majority of them critically ill patients. Fire department officials said the toll would have been less had the hospital opted for sliding windows that a patient could open with an outstretched arm from his or her bed. In the absence of an outlet for the columns of noxious smoke coming in through the air-conditioning vents and the elevator shaft, everyone confined to a bed had little chance of surviving for more than an hour after the fire began around 2.15am. | FROM HOSPITAL BED TO ROPE OF HOPE |  | | The Survivor |  | | The Mourner |  | | The Fighter |  | The Rescue Cry
Pictures by Pabitra Das and
Bishwarup Dutta |
"In any case, the fire in the basement itself was detected late because nobody was there. And then the hospital staff committed the grave error of not informing the fire brigade immediately," an official said. Each floor in the building has an air-handling unit that is used to condition and circulate air as part of the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning system. Fire department officials said smoke could have been prevented from entering the floors had trained staff been deployed on every floor to turn off the units. "From what we gathered, the hospital staff just didn't know what to do in the immediate aftermath of the fire in the basement. Clueless as they were, most of them abandoned the building, leaving the patients to die," the director of fire services, Gopal Bhattacharjee, said. Even something as basic as switching off power supply to the air-conditioning plant wasn't done until fire brigade personnel reached the site. "Power supply to the unit for more than two hours after the fire meant smoke continued to travel through the AC ducts to the upper floors. By the time we reached the top, there was so much thick, black smoke all around that you could hardly see a couple of feet ahead," Bhattacharjee said. More than 95 per cent of the windows in the centrally air-conditioned building were permanently sealed, which experts said was against standard fire-safety norms. "In a hospital, where almost every potential victim is confined to a bed, having sealed windows and no other ventilation is an invitation to disaster," the official said. The basement — the fire broke out in Tier I — was stocked with inflammable materials like cables, paper, polythene, chemicals and spirit instead of being used for what it was meant to be: a parking lot. Worse, the fire department had issued a no-objection certificate to the hospital a few months ago. "We need to find out how such a certificate was issued when there was so much to object to," a senior official said. If flouting all the fire-safety guidelines in the book weren't enough, the hospital allegedly didn't have any evacuation plan for an emergency. Nobody remembers when the last fire-safety drill was carried out to test the alarm and the sprinklers that didn't work on Friday. The private guards deployed at the hospital didn't help anybody's cause either by preventing residents of the nearby colony from mounting a rescue effort. The volunteers, most of them youths, finally got in by breaking through a portion of the wall at the back of the hospital. "All malls, hospitals, banks and offices are supposed to deploy a group of personnel trained in dousing fire. That is the most basic requirement. At AMRI, not only did the staff fail to save lives, they worsened the scale of the tragedy by not seeking help when they should have," a firefighter said. THE DEATH TRAP • Basement was deserted so the fire was not spotted till it spread. • Fire alarm did not go off. • Sprinklers on the ceiling did not get activated. • Firemen were alerted late and, initially, engines arrived with only manual ladders. • Tier 1 of the basement — meant to be a car park — with pharmacy storeroom was stocked with inflammable materials like cables, paper, polythene, chemicals and spirit. • Hospital did not have trained personnel to react to the emergency. There was no one to switch off the power supply to the AC plant or turn off the air-handling unit (AHU) on each floor. • Windows in the centrally air-conditioned building were sealed with glass panels. • No evacuation plan. Do you know of any victim/survivor in the AMRI tragedy? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
'Baba amay banchao' | | SUBHAJOY ROY AND SREECHETA DAS |  | | A victim's relative breaks down at AMRI Hospitals. (Bishwarup Dutta) |
"Baba amay banchao…. Baba…" was 15-year-old Prakrita's last plea before the toxic gases in her lungs snuffed out her life. Her father Dhananjoy Pal, who received her phone call, rushed to AMRI Hospitals in the neighbourhood but was barred by guards — for "security reasons" — from going up to the floor where she was admitted. Standing helplessly in front of the hospital, he later received the news that his daughter, a Class IX student of Joyrambati Ramakrishna Mission Girls' School admitted to the hospital with a fracture in her leg, was dead. Around him were dozens of others without any clue whether their near ones inside the hospital were alive or dead. Like Shyama Prasad Halder, whose daughter-in-law Chandrani was also admitted to the hospital with a fractured leg. His son Nilabjo, admitted to AMRI Salt Lake with a fracture, was frantically calling him for news of his wife. "I don't know how I am going to tell him that Chandrani is no more. They had met with an accident on their way back to the city from Mukutmanipur. He was referred to Salt Lake and she was admitted here," said Shyama Prasad after identifying Chandrani's body at SSKM morgue. Sudhaong Mog Chowdhury's relatives were repenting their decision to bring the 19-year-old from Tripura to the city hospital. "I brought my brother here after his motorcycle crash, thinking that he would get the best possible care but they have killed him," said Sudhaong's elder brother Anglafru, a sub-inspector with Tripura police. Sudhaong was to be released on Saturday. "I heard about the fire and rushed to the hospital around 4am. We were allowed inside only at 5.30am," he added. Many were consumed by guilt. "My aunt had called at 4.15am, pleading with us to rescue her, saying that the doctors and nurses had left them to die. She was gasping but we could not do anything," said Amit Chakraborty, nephew of Munmun Chakraborty, who was admitted with orthopaedic ailments. Samrat Roy, whose uncle Jawahar Ganguly was admitted to the hospital on Thursday evening, saw the fire break out. He asked the authorities to discharge his uncle immediately. "They had refused, saying the ICU was safe. My brother was left with no option but to see our uncle die," said Jawahar's niece Nandita Roy. Among the dead was former Congress MLA Sisir Sen. "Baba was to be discharged yesterday but we deliberately prolonged his stay so that he would not find out about a cousin, whose last rites were performed during the day, had died," said his son Abhijit. Two nurses from Kerala, Ramya Rajappan, 22, and Mineeta P.K., 22, died on duty. Amid mourning, some fought with others over identity of bodies. Bratati Ganguly identified a woman as her mother Aparna Chatterjee. Soumen Palit later claimed she was his mother Nilima Palit. The mark of a recent appendix operation proved him right. Bratati couldn't locate her mother till late on Friday. Lack of information kept relatives on tenterhooks long after the fire was brought under control. The reception of the main hospital building was deserted throughout the day. In the afternoon, the names of patients who had been shifted to AMRI hospitals at Salt Lake and Mukundapaur were announced. When relatives urged the announcer to call out the names of those who had been shifted to SSKM and other hospitals, he refused saying: "The list has not been prepared." "We were repeatedly failing to get through to the helpline," said a neighbour of Sangita Mallik, who was admitted to the neurosurgery wing. Kamala Chatterjee's parents saw footage of her running for her life on a television news channel and rushed to the hospital but could not find her. Getting no information from the authorities, they moved from hospital to hospital looking for their daughter. |  |
| Saviours from the slum next door | | TAMAGHNA BANERJEE |  | | Some of those who risked their lives to save the trapped patients. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
It wasn't their job to help but they saw it as their duty. Residents of the Panchanantala slum, just behind the hospital, scaled walls, climbed pipes and bamboo scaffoldings and shattered glass panes to help rescue at least 70 patients trapped on the smoke-filled floors. Raju Bhandari was one of the first to smell the fire and rushed to the hospital compound. He could see patients banging on the glass windows from the second and third floors, desperately calling for help. Raju knew he had to enter the building quickly to save as many of them as possible. But the security guards would not let him pass. "It was around 2.30am," said the 25-year-old, who lives in a shanty. "The guards were doing nothing and the building was wrapped in smoke. When the guards refused to let me enter, three friends and I scaled the wall from the back of the hospital. We asked the private guards for ropes for climbing. But they tried to push us away." Raju and his friends did not budge and climbed a bamboo scaffolding — that had been there because of ongoing renovation — to the second floor. "We shattered the glass panes and entered the floor. By the time the patients were already trying to jump. We stopped them," said another saviour, Bubai Das. They helped the patients who could walk to climb down the scaffolding. But rescuing those who were in no position to walk posed a problem. "We then made a rope by joining the bed sheets and curtains. We tied the makeshift ropes to the patients' midriff and started lowering them. The patients were hurt and so were the rescuers, but we continued with the job," said Bubai. Reaching those beyond the second floor proved difficult because the scaffolding was only up to that floor. On the third and fourth floors, some patients had already started breaking the glass panes and even started pelting stones at the rescuers in a bid to attract their attention. "They were screaming out for our help. But we were helpless. Some of us climbed to the higher floors but they could not bring down the patients, who were mostly serious," said another rescuer, Chandan Saha. The rescuers reckoned they managed to bring 70 patients out of the building. "Some of them were already dead by the time we got them down," said Raju, who works in a private firm in Dalhousie. The saviours alleged that the fire officers started entering only after 5am. "The doctors and other hospital staff were fleeing. I even saw a doctor kick away a patient who fell at his feet, begging to take him along," said Sridam Kayal, another Panchanantala shanty resident. Some of the patients' relatives, too, scaled the wall in a bid to save their loved ones. "As soon as I came to know about the fire, I fought with the security guards blocking my way and reached the second floor, where my uncle was admitted. He was senseless and I somehow got him down through the staircase," said Santosh Goldar. Once the fire officers and police took over the rescue operations, the first saviours were pushed out. The cops even reportedly resorted to a lathicharge to get them off the premises. "We risked our lives in the smoke. Some of us fell ill and our bodies are full of cuts and bruises, but once the fire and smoke was controlled, they shooed us away," said Debasis Halder, who was trying to enter the building around 9am to check if there were any more patients yet to be rescued. Stamp of desperation in the dark | | RITU PARNA DUTTA |  | | The female ward on the second floor of AMRI Hospitals, deserted and dishevelled, on Friday morning. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
For some, life hung by the narrow strip of a window blind. For most, even the window within an arm's reach was an escape too far. Inside the seven-storey Annexe I of AMRI Hospitals in Dhakuria on Friday, desperation had left its stamp on every wall, every floor, every room. An imprint of a soot-laced hand on the wall next to the door of a super-deluxe cabin on the second floor spoke of someone's struggle to get out. An apron loosely tied to a bedsheet on the floor of the adjacent room told of a last-ditch — perhaps futile — attempt to reach a barely foot-wide cornice below a shattered windowpane.  | | The cries of the living filled the haemo-dialysis unit. (Sayantan Ghosh) |  | | A smoky fourth-floor corridor of the hospital. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |  | | Tears for the dear in the haemo-dialysis unit. (Sayantan Ghosh) |
A wheelchair lying sideways with a patient's robe covering the backrest lay in front of the neuro medicine male ward on the third floor, painting a picture of someone who might have unsuccessfully tried to use it as the legs to a possible escape as smoke barrelled down the dark corridor. A row of super-speciality beds in the intensive cardiac care unit on the fourth floor formed a disorderly circle — a huddle of death, as it were, of mostly immobile patients. Did any of the victims stand a chance of survival? The answer came wafting in the first gust of smoke that hit the nose while walking up the west-end stairway from the first to the second floor. More than 12 hours had passed since those gut-wrenching last moments of struggle for the 90 victims, but the labyrinthine innards of the building were still wrapped in smoke and heat emanating from an unseen furnace. "Don't go further please, it's smoky and dark in there," warned the senior of two civil defence personnel, proceeding to volunteer an answer to a question that hadn't even been asked. "The windows were sealed, the power had been switched off, it was pitch dark inside. And, of course, they were all patients," he said, eyes rooted to the dishevelled ward. "By the time someone shattered the panes, most of those here would have been dead." Floor number two of the AMRI annexe houses 15 deluxe rooms, two super-deluxe cabins and three suites. A black sofa glistened in the late-afternoon light seeping in through the broken window of a suite. The sofa would have done any living room proud, but the bedsheets were crumpled and the blinds torn. A pair of dark tan shoes — around size seven — lay next to the wardrobe door. "It's possible that the occupant of this room survived if someone reached him from outside the window and helped him climb down one of those," said a fireman, pointing to a strip of white hanging out of the window. A few steps down the corridor and a right turn led to the female ward. There, around 5am, a young woman with a broken left foot had called her husband at home to plead: "I can't breathe…I can't move. Please come, please." Munmun Chakraborty, the 36-year-old occupant of bed No. 2224, was dead by the time husband Subhashish and other family members reached AMRI from their Kasba home. Most of the casualties were on the third and fourth floors. The columns of smoke coming in through the elevator shaft at the far end and the air-conditioning ducts would have reached them last, but few among the patients across those two floors would have had the mobility to make a proper attempt to escape. Floor No. 3 has a row of 13 twin-sharing cabins on one side and the neuro surgery and neuro medicine male and female wards on the opposite side along with a doctors' resting room and a nursing station. "I reached the third floor after several attempts around 6.30am but found no survivors. It was very dark and the smoke was getting into my lungs, but I keep looking with my cellphone torch. Unfortunately, everywhere I looked there was a corpse," said Biswajit, a resident of the area who had to be administered oxygen after his valiant rescue effort. The fourth floor, housing the intensive care units, looked the most congested. Beds, equipment and assorted furniture crowded the high dependency units, mattresses and linen lay strewn across the floor. In ICU bed No. 2423 was Prakash Chandra Maity, 58. He had had a pacemaker installed to stabilise his heart on Thursday, little knowing that the biggest battle for survival would come less than 24 hours later. "I heard a doctor shouting at us to go to the balcony (the only one in the building). I pulled out my drip and waited there, panting and praying. After half an hour, someone fixed a ladder and I climbed down. It seemed I would faint any moment, but I wanted to live," he said. In that dark theatre of death, his was one of the few voices. Nobody heard the rest even scream to be saved. Stephen Court switches off TV | | POULOMI BANERJEE |  |  | | Nandram Market and (above) Stephen Court up in flames in 2008 and 2010 respectively |
For the residents of Stephen Court, the AMRI blaze was a terrifying trip back in time and a reminder of how vulnerable they still are at home. "As soon as my wife told me about the hospital fire, my mind went back to March 23, 2010. How could it not? I lost my mother that day. She had helped my 99-year-old grandmother out of our burning flat but couldn't save herself," said Mahendra Golcha, a resident at the Park Street address where 43 people had died in the fire. Many of his neighbours could not bear to watch the television news on Friday. "It was like an action replay of the fire that destroyed our home. I could not even drink my morning tea after switching on the TV," said Gouri Guha Niyogi of Block III. Behind the terrible memories is the fear that it can happen again. "If the firemen were properly equipped, my mother would be with me today. It is evident that there is a problem somewhere. We lack the infrastructure to save people. All the buildings in the city taller than six floors are death traps," said Mahendra. Somini Sen Dua, who has an office in Block III of Stephen Court, was more critical. "Nothing has changed. We are as badly equipped to handle a crisis today as we were a year and a half ago. Looking at our infrastructure, I feel Calcutta should not be called a metro city," she said. The measures suggested by a joint committee of the civic body, police, CESC and the fire department that probed the Stephen Court blaze are yet to be implemented. Not a surprise considering the Nandram Market fire that raged for four days in January 2008 has failed to improve the fire safety of structure in any significant way. An expert committee probing the blaze had called for the demolition of the eight illegal floors above the fifth at the Burrabazar address. Only the top two floors, which were razed by the flames, were demolished. Over 2,500 shops were gutted and more than Rs 200 crore lost in the 2008 fire. Sight of a row of bodies- Neighbours wake up to dense smoke, terrible smell and radiation fears |  | | Smoke engulfs the AMRI Hospitals annexe that caught fire. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
A septuagenarian resident of Shibnath Bhavan, the multi-storeyed building next to AMRI, speaks to Metro on condition of anonymity of the tragedy that unfolded next door. The clock was still to strike 5 when I was woken up by a call from a neighbour. "Didi, see what's happening outside." There was an urgency in the voice and I immediately went to the balcony that looks out to Dhakuria bridge. Ambulances were screaming through the first light of the day. Looking down, I could spot a couple of fire engines and some police vans. As I was trying to make sense of the sight, someone opened our apartment's door. Dense smoke wafted in from the staircase, carrying a terrible smell. There was a lot of sound downstairs. Cylinders seemed to be bursting one after the other. The fire was in the adjacent hospital. Would it affect us? There was panic all around. As word spread, people started pouring in. Fearing a law and order problem, our main gate was ordered shut. Gradually TV channel vans started arriving. The bridge was cordoned off. It was swarming with heads anyway. Our domestic help came. Her brother-in-law had injured his hand trying to help with the rescue. The chief minister came and there was commotion downstairs. People started running helter-skelter. Thank god, there was no stampede. Some guests were to come in the evening. I called them to cancel the invitation. There were so many people on the road in front of our building that it was impossible to go out now. My ears are still ringing with the shouts of people and the wail of ambulances. But the sight that wore me down was the row of bodies being brought out. Staying next to a hospital, the sight of the dead at our door is not new to us. But today, the number seemed unending. As told to Sudeshna Banerjee Another resident of Shibnath Bhawan, Manash Mukul Ghosh, recalls the horror moments I was getting ready to go out for a walk when the guards of our building told me about the fire. I alerted other residents. We went to the terrace and saw thick, black fume had engulfed the neighbourhood. Several youngsters from the local Panchanantala slum were bringing out bodies or trying to rescue those trapped inside. We were terribly scared when we heard there could be radioactive radiation from the hospital. The government should take this matter very seriously and send experts to ascertain the level of radiation. Alo Halder, a resident of CIT Building, adjacent to Shibnath Bhawan, learnt about the fire almost as soon as it broke out and alerted neighbours. The hospital basement that caught fire was almost our backyard. The sight of thick, black smoke billowing out of the hospital was very scary. We are feeling unsafe. Anything can happen any time, anywhere. My husband, a cardiac patient, started crying and fell ill. I had to give him sleeping pills to pacify him. | As told to Sreecheta Das
'I am grateful to be alive'
Back from the brink |  |  | | Ajay Santra and (above) Chandana Mookherjee |
Chandana Mookherjee, a retired headmistress, was to be discharged on Thursday. But a health insurance-related problem forced her to stay an extra night. The 61-year-old hypertension patient tells Metro how her inability to sleep helped her survive. I was very tired after a long day. I took a sleeping pill but still couldn't nod off. I was trying hard to sleep when one of my fellow patients complained of breathlessness. "Thakuma, ekhon ghumiye jaan, shokale daktar ashben (Please try to sleep, the doctor will visit in the morning)," a nurse tried to pacify her. The others started complaining a minute later. The nurses handed masks to all patients but there was no escaping the burning smell. I peeped out of the window. There was a dim light outside but I couldn't guess the time. A male nurse from another ward shattered some window panes with a chair. As if on cue, two heads appeared outside one of the shattered windows. One was wearing a yellow helmet. They were a godsend. The hospital staff, however, pushed us back to reach the ladder without stopping to help. I didn't believe I could go down the ladder. I was feeling disoriented but had enough sense to follow the fire-fighter's instructions. I stepped over the broken window and landed on the sunshade. It was only because of the fire officer and a young man from Panchanantala that I managed to take my first step. Everything after that is a blur. The next memory is of me sitting on a wheelchair. I borrowed a cellphone from someone and called up my family. As I waited for them to arrive, I saw people running about and screaming, looking for their loved ones. It was then that I realised how close I had been to death. It was the ninth visit to AMRI for Zothanmawii from Aizawl, who was being treated for eye cancer. The 60-year-old relives the minutes of terror and says her familiarity with the hospital's floor layout helped her survive. I was in a double-bed room on the third floor but alone last night. I woke up around 4am and saw the room full of smoke. I got up and walked to the door. I stepped into a pitch-dark corridor, where the smoke was even thicker. I went back to the room and called up my son. I kept thinking I was going to die. I told him I would wait for someone to come and take me out. I waited for a while but no one came. My son called me up and I told him I was going to die. He told me to get a hold on myself and reassured me that nothing was going to happen. He told me to try and find my way down. Since I was familiar with the hospital, I felt my way around the corridor, heading for the stairwell. I held on to the railing, covering my nose and mouth with my hand. All I could think while I tried to climb down was that I would die here in the inky darkness, that all of us would die. When I finally got out, the relief was enormous. I am grateful to be alive. Sumi V.S., a nurse on night duty on the fourth floor, had a narrow escape. The 25-year-old from Kerala spoke to Metro from AMRI Women and Children's Hospital in Mukundapur. I was on duty in the trauma intensive care unit (TICU). All 10 beds were occupied in the unit. The other ICUs were also full. The situation went out of control all of a sudden. With thick smoke on the floors below, we could not go downstairs or try to save the patients. Around 4am, it was almost impossible to breathe. We broke open windows and craned our necks to get some fresh air. But it didn't help and many of us fell sick. We knew we couldn't take the stairs. The only escape route for us, we figured, was if the firemen managed to break more glass panes and pulled us out. I started praying for their swift arrival. By the time the firemen located the ICUs and set up the hydraulic ladder, we were well and truly drained with uncontrolled bouts of coughing. Even while I was stepping on the ladder, I did not know if I would make it, but I did. At the same time, I was feeling extremely bad for the ICU patients who, I knew, did not stand a chance. Ajay Santra, 24, had been admitted to the hospital on Thursday after a bike accident. The medical representative woke up to find his third-floor ward full of smoke. He tellsMetro about each agonising step down the dark staircase. My right arm and leg were badly injured in the accident. I was initially taken to a government hospital but my brother decided to shift me here. I woke up around 2am to a noise of great commotion. Some of the other patients in the ward — all with orthopaedic problems — had also woken up. But there was no one from the hospital to tell us what was going on. Around 3am, smoke started billowing out of the AC ducts. That was when we first panicked. Around this time, two ward boys dashed into the room and pushed my bed out to the corridor near the lift. Then they brought out three other beds. But no one told us what was going on. The boys brought out a patient, in his 70s, in their arms and started to climb down the stairs with him. When they saw the thick smoke, they put him down. "'Apni namte parben na (You won't be able to climb down)', they told him," and disappeared into the thick smoke themselves. I realised I'd have to go down the stairs by myself but was doubtful if I would be able to even stand, let alone walk, as my leg was hurting badly. The first time I tried going downstairs, I retreated after taking a few steps because the smoke was too thick. I tried going downstairs again. As it was very dark anyway, I shut my eyes, hoping they would burn less that way. At each landing, I oriented myself from the patients' cries. It seemed like an eternity, but I finally reached the ground floor. I walked around aimlessly for a while before I got a cellphone from someone and called home. | AS TOLD TO MONALISA CHAUDHURI, CHANDREYEE CHATTERJEE AND RITH BASU
Kin barred as patients die in bed
Painful wait for bodies at SSKM | | OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT |  | | A bereaved relative at SSKM Hospital. (Pradip Sanyal) |
As hours passed, the death toll at AMRI Hospitals kept rising and bodies kept piling at SSKM Hospital. By evening, the hospital had carried out post-mortem on as many as 55 bodies. "Ami jani aapnara onek korechhen (I know all of you have done a lot). But please bear with me and try and help the aggrieved families," the chief minister told a group of doctors busy completing the formalities for handing over the bodies to family members. Mamata Banerjee had arrived at the hospital around six hours before and taken charge of the administration to speed up the disposal of bodies. She asked officials to ensure that all the bodies were brought to SSKM. Several relatives, however, complained of delay in getting the bodies. "It's sheer mess and we are not sure if we would receive the body today," said a relative of Amitava Das, who had died. "The process is time-consuming as it involves a series of formalities."  | | A body being wheeled out of AMRI Hospitals in Dhakuria on Friday morning. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya |
Explaining the process, a police officer said a body could be sent for inquest only after a family member identified it. "A challan has to be filled up for the post-mortem that follows inquest. The post-mortem, which continues for around 50 minutes, begins only after the police submit the challan to the morgue," the officer said. Worse than delay was perhaps the chaos. Many relatives were in the dark whether their near ones were dead or alive. "I am yet to find my cousin Parama Chakraborty, who was admitted to AMRI. I came to know about the fire in the morning and have since been trying in vain to get information about her," said Paramita Bhattacharya, waiting outside the morgue at SSKM. Dilip Sarkar had rushed to the hospital in search of his colleague Shyama Charan Pal. "I don't know what had happened to him. I have been waiting for hours but it's so chaotic inside that I have hardly got an opportunity to take a close look at the bodies," said Sarkar. Fifteen people of AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria, including patients and employees, were sent to the Salt Lake facility of the chain. Two of them — Mineeta P.K., a 22-year-old nurse from Kerala, and Arup K. Chatterjee, 65, a resident of Baruipur — died. Relatives took away two of the patients while another two were admitted to the ICU. Five of the 56 patients shifted to AMRI Women and Children Hospital in Mukundapur are children. "The babies are fine. They have been shifted to facilitate re-allocation of wards at AMRI Dhakuria," said D.N. Manna, the senior vice-president of AMRI Hospitals. Thirteen were discharged while a man was declared dead on arrival. He could not be identified. Debraj Mondal, who had been shifted to the Mukundapur hospital, said he and the others in his ward had to sit for two hours outside the Dhakuria hospital before being shifted. Delay despair binds twin tragedies
Phone call too late, ladder too far away | | OUR BUREAU |  | | Disaster management personnel break open a portion of a wall to let out smoke from the basement. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta |
Lives could have been saved had the firemen not reached AMRI Hospitals late and ill-equipped, said rescuers from the neighbourhood. According to fire services department log, the first call alerting them about the AMRI blaze came at 4.08am, almost two hours after the flames were spotted in the hospital basement. Two tenders from Garia fire station reached the hospital 20 minutes later with two ladders that barely reach the first floor, said witnesses, despite the firemen knowing that the building was seven storeys high. They called for the two skylifts of height 54 and 70 metres, stationed at Behala and Salt Lake, only at 6.15am, said witnesses. The skylifts reached the hospital after 45 more minutes.  | | Firemen spray jets of water at the basement of AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria on Friday. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
A fire officer, however, said the skylifts were called for around 5.15am. Residents of the area who were rescuing those trapped in the hospital were furious at the firemen showing up without proper equipment. "Even we could have climbed up to the second floor along bamboo poles placed against windows. The firemen and their tools were needed to rescue those trapped on the third and fourth floors," said Tarit Das, a rescuer who lives in a shanty near the hospital. In the absence of skylifts, firemen, imitating the untrained local rescuers, tied bed sheets around patients and lowered them to ground from the balconies and windows of the upper floors. Retired firefighters said those on the ground needed at least 100 breathing apparatus sets, but had brought along only 20. "The fire department does not have so many breathing apparatus sets. Even the ones that are there are seldom used because firemen are uncomfortable about using them," said a fire officer. Rescuers also said the firemen seemed unsure about using breathing apparatus. "We were entering the building and bringing out patients without even handkerchieves over our noses. But the firemen with oxygen masks and cylinders only huddled outside the gate and did not enter the building. Some ventured into the less smoky areas," said Sikandar Ali, another rescuer from the neighbourhood. According to witnesses, it took a 35-member team from the disaster management group of Calcutta police to speed up rescue efforts. The team reached the hospital around 7.30am and its members immediately started breaking the glass panes in the building to release the smoke. They later helped the firefighters and local residents to bring down patients. "We were on our way to a practice drill. When we learnt about the fire, we rushed to the hospital to help," said a member of the disaster management group. Guilty for feeling lucky |  | | Hands reach out to help a patient climb down a ladder at annexe I of AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria on Friday morning. (Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
I brought my father back home from AMRI on Thursday morning. I'm feeling lucky, and feeling guilty for feeling lucky. I wonder what happened to the elderly patient on the bed next to my father's who was admonishing the hospital barber for objecting to being addressed as "napit". Or the young man in the neuro ward who I wished would stop shouting at the nurses so my father could get a little sleep. On Friday afternoon, I called up the young physiotherapist who was to start his visits to our home from the same evening and learnt he was all right. His was the only phone number I had among all the hospital staff who had become familiar faces over the past four weeks. The friendly "brother" in blue and the "sister" whose Hindi accent I couldn't figure out, the ward boy who planted a synthetic rose in my father's hand as he was being wheeled out and waited for a tip, the patient young man behind the counter who called me back to hand over a fresh bill because he had forgotten the senior citizen's discount. My father spent 17 days in two stints at the annexe that caught fire, first in the fourth-floor ITU and HDU (high-dependency unit), and later in the third-floor neurological ward. He was to be discharged on Tuesday but as his sugar level kept fluctuating, the doctor decided to wait a "few more days". I sure am glad that it was two days, not three. (The 'survivor' prefers to remain anonymous) TRAUMA TWEETS Abir Chatterjee (@itsmeabir) Shocking images... just crossed AMRI! The scene is scary, unnerving! Feeling sick! Amader jibon etotai sosta? Etotai osohaay amra? Rahul Bose (@RahulBose1)
Horrified about AMRI fire in Calcutta. Genuinely caring about human lives requires enormous energy & compassion. Do we as a country have it? Suhel Seth (@suhelseth)
I think someone in Bengal needs to worry...the only places people are dying in are hospitals. What's going on???? #BoloDidi Onir (@IamOnir)
AMRI hospital fire in Calcutta. Once again this tragedy makes us aware how we don't value lives in this country. No fire escape, no alarm. A shame. Derek O'Brien (@quizderek) FIR filed against AMRI hospital.The families won't get back their loved ones but the 'criminals' who r responsible must be punished. Sound of a wail at dawn | | ANANDA KAMAL SEN | | | AMRI employees shout for help through a window, the panes of which had been broken. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) |
Mornings usually break with the sound of a familiar ringtone. This one dawned with a wail. It began somewhere in the subconscious before racing closer in an insistent, ululating wave. An ambulance screamed past. Then another. And another. Then the phone rang. AMRI was on fire. "Which AMRI?" "It's all smoke before our eyes, Dada," cried the woman who does the cooking for us. She stays in the slum just across the road, which meant it was AMRI Dhakuria, not the one in Salt Lake. Our AMRI, the across-the-bridge neighbourhood hospital where you knocked for everything from getting an X-ray done or blood tests to a strip of emergency painkillers. It might be an exaggeration to say that patients develop a relationship with a hospital, but for residents of South End Park, the tree-lined stretch between Southern Avenue and Dhakuria, the both-sides-of-the-bridge facility had over the years evolved into a reassuring edifice of 24-hour reliability. If the bypass had Apollo Gleneagles and down south it was Peerless, Golpark, South End Park and Dhakuria had AMRI. Less than six months back, the spic and sanitised corridors of the hospital had taken care of this limping reporter with a stricken lumbar disc. Today, it was the hospital that was stricken. You smelt the smoke as you hit the South End Park main road, the busy stretch that connects Southern Avenue with Dhakuria bridge. Police vehicles, ambulances and cars with press stickers lined either side of the road. A fire engine rumbled past, a lumbering red behemoth to the rescue. Camera bag slung across, a photographer sprinted forward, lens aimed at a cloud of vapour curling from a window. A burly fireman, obviously a few notches high in the hierarchy going by the salute he got from a fellow firefighter even in this jam-packed madness of fire engines and jostling crowd, barked orders as a giant Bronto skylift negotiated a corner in the cramped lane leading to the affected block. Volunteers, nose and mouth covered, cleared the way through the throng of people. What they couldn't clear, though, was the feeling of being let down, more so for a neighbourhood guy. Before Friday, AMRI Dhakuria was a proud landmark, a dependable signpost for care. No longer. That confidence has gone up in smoke. What if the fire had started when you were strapped to a bed, electrical impulses tingling through your injured spine? Sujata, who lives in the slum under the shadow of the hospital block, said she saw patients screaming for help. "They kept banging on the windows, screaming and crying," she shuddered, almost re-living the helpless horror of the witness and the victims. Six months back, after the daily therapy was over, a friendly and attractive intern had handed a feedback form. She smiled when she looked at the comments: "Caring staff. Nothing to complain about. 9 out of 10." Why not 10/10 if nothing to complain about? The answer might be today. |
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