Mumbai: Twenty-four Covid-19 patients died in Maharashtra’s Nashik after an oxygen tanker leaked outside a hospital, disrupting supply to patients for around 30 minutes.
According to Nashik district collector Suraj Mandhare, the supply was interrupted after leakage in one of the storage tankers at Dr Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital.
All the victims were on ventilators and in need of constant oxygen supply. Zakir Hussain Hospital is a Covid-dedicated facility. Around 150 patients were either oxygen-dependent or on ventilators.
Visuals showed gas leaking from the tanker outside the hospital and dense white fumes covering the area rapidly.
A total of 157 patients were undergoing treatment at the Covid-19 hospital in Nashik, Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope said.
Security has been currently tightened at the hospital to prevent any untoward incident. ‘We have beefed up the bandobast here after some deaths were reported. After the tragedy, the relatives are very angry,’ said Nashik Police Commissioner Deepak Pandey.
Reports claimed that the 13 kilo litre liquid oxygen tank that was installed at Dr Zakir Hussain hospital in Nashik had been in use only for the last 21 days before a malfunction in one of its valves led to disruption in oxygen supply.
When asked how the system could fail within days of it being commissioned, NMC Commissioner Kailash Jadhav said that it would be probed if there was any dereliction of duty on the part of the contractor. ‘We will investigate if the company failed to perform its duties.’