Tragedy struck a major public hospital in Pakistan’s capital early this morning when a fire tore through a maternity unit, leaving 14 children dead, according to the Islamabad district office.
Officials said the blaze erupted on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), a government-run hospital in Islamabad.
“A total of 14 children died in the incident,” the district office said in a statement, without providing the children’s ages.
The statement did not state the cause of the fire.
Sohail Ashraf, the Islamabad chief commissioner, wrote on X that rescue teams, specialists and police — along with himself — “immediately reached at site and controlled the fire”.
He said authorities received the emergency call just before 7am local time.
Deadly fires in large buildings are a recurring problem in Pakistan, frequently linked to weak safety laws and building codes and poor enforcement.
In January, more than 65 people were killed in a shopping centre fire in the port city of Karachi.
At least 11 people were killed in another shopping mall fire in Karachi in 2023.
In 2021, at least 16 workers died after a factory fire in the same city.
In 2012, at least 250 labourers died at a garment factory in Baldia Town, in western Karachi, when a fire engulfed the facility. The building had no fire escape.
