Five die in ‘nightmare’ fire at Russian virus hospital

SAINT PETERSBURG: Five people died in a fire in a hospital for coronavirus patients in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg on Tuesday, with some victims attached to ventilators, officials said. Another 150 people were evacuated after the blaze broke out on the sixth floor of the Saint George hospital, the emergencies ministry said, one of a string of fires in care facilities and clinics in Russia in recent days. The hospital had been repurposed to treat coronavirus patients and some of the dead patients had been connected to ventilators when the fire began. Windows near the top floor of the hospital were blackened with soot as firefighters worked outside. Four patients died in an intensive care ward, the city’s Vyborg district attorney Pavel Danilov told AFP, adding that the cause of death of the fifth person was being clarified. “Everyone is shocked by what happened,” said Svetlana Stepanova, a pensioner receiving treatment at the hospital. “A fire in the hospital is a nightmare,” she told AFP. Saint Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov, citing preliminary information, said a short circuit was believed to be the cause of the fire. “A ventilator has caught fire,” his office said in a statement.