A fire that ripped through a
hospital in Fukuoka as patients slept killed 10 elderly people Friday and
prompted government demands for safety reviews across the country.
The blaze, which broke out in
the middle of the night, left a further five people injured, police said, with
the fire and disaster management agency saying four of them were in a serious
condition.
Video footage aired on public
broadcaster NHK showed firefighters surrounding the hospital in Hakata Ward, as
smoke poured from the front entrance of the partially gutted building. Dark
streaks of soot were smeared across the second floor windows.
“We have confirmed the deaths of
10 people—eight in-patients and two hospital workers,” said a local police
spokesman. The two hospital workers were a former hospital director and his
wife, police later said.
All of those who died were
between the ages of 70 and 89, police said.
The fire raged for around two
hours, having started at 2:20 a.m. at the four-story ferroconcrete building,
which opened as an orthopedic hospital in 1970.
The hospital has 19 beds, with
suites for orthopedics, rheumatism and rehabilitation.
Hospital staff lived on the top
floor, a local fire station official said.
“We did our best in fire
fighting to save lives… but it was a difficult situation,” a fire station
official told a hastily arranged press conference.
“We received news of the fire at
a very late stage, and there had been no attempt (by staff) to tackle the fire
in its early stages,” he said.
“Patients on the second and
third floors were exposed to a lot of smoke because fire doors that would have
stemmed the flow had been left open,” he said.
Another fire station official
told AFP that the fire appeared to have begun somewhere on the ground floor,
but he did not know the specific place or cause of the fire.
“We first received the report of
a fire after a nurse who was inside the hospital rushed out and asked a taxi
driver to make an emergency call,” he added.
Local media reported the fire
may have started at a treatment room which had a laser device and thermal
therapy equipment that used a water boiler.
Hours after the tragedy, Japan’s
fire and disaster management agency issued administrative guidance to fire
headquarters nationwide that officials check hospitals to ensure medical
organizations are prepared for nighttime fires.
It also sent seven officials to
the scene to probe the cause of the disaster, an agency spokesman said.
NHK quoted a firefighter as
saying the building was already belching flames and smoke when fire engines
arrived.
A 43-year-old woman living in
the told the network: “A lot of smoke came to the front door of my house and I
heard shouts like ‘Help!’ and crunching sounds.”
A man who lives in the
neighborhood told private broadcaster Nippon TV that the ground floor “was red
with flames and was filled with smoke. The part where beds were located seemed
to be burning”.
He said he had seen some elderly
patients being rushed out of the burning building, with ambulance crew
performing heart massage.
Private broadcaster TV Asahi
said around 20 fire trucks had attended the blaze.
Latest television footage showed
dozens of police and fire department officials conducting on-site
investigations.
While Fukuoka is a fairly modern
city, in common with other parts of Japan many older have narrow streets, which
the broadcaster said could have hampered access.
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