Fourteen COVID-19 patients died after a fire broke out at the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Palghar district of Maharashtra on Friday, police said.
While 13 were charred to death in the ICU, one patient died while being taken to another hospital, an official said.
There were 83 patients in the hospital, 17 of them in the ICU when the fire broke out after a blast in the AC unit, an official said.
TV visuals showed the smoke-filled ICU in disarray after the blaze, with the ceiling falling off in some places, beds and other furniture strewn around and kin of the deceased wailing outside the hospital.
The fire broke out in the ICU located on the second floor of the four-storeyed Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar shortly after 3 am, an official said. It was extinguished at 5.20 am, he added.
The other patients in the hospital were not affected as the damage was confined to the ICU, the official said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray expressed grief over the tragedy and directed the local administration to probe the cause of the blaze.