Nashik hospital horror: Oxygen leak kills 24 virus patients

Nashik - The tragic incident added to the woes of Maharashtra, which reported its highest ever single-day spike in Covid deaths.

At least two dozen Covid patients who were on ventilation and oxygen masks in a hospital in Nashik, about 220km from here, died after a leakage in the tank disrupted supplies on Wednesday.

The tragic incident added to the woes of Maharashtra, which reported its highest ever single-day spike in Covid deaths, with 568 people succumbing to the disease. The state also recorded a massive 67,468 new cases over the past 24 hours.

“The leakage was spotted at the tank supplying oxygen to these patients. The interrupted supply could be linked to the deaths of the patients in the hospital,” Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that he was stunned to learn of the hospital tragedy and expressed his condolences to the kin of the victims.

Pune continued to be the worst-affected city in Maharashtra with 10,852 cases and 35 deaths, while Mumbai saw 7,684 new cases and 62 deaths. Nagpur reported 7,555 cases and 41 deaths.

With almost 1,600 deaths on Wednesday, India’s total shot up to almost 185,000. And with 271,280 new cases, the number of confirmed cases has gone up to 15.88 million.

The situation in Delhi also continued to deteriorate, with thousands of Covid patients queuing up to get admission in hospitals. Many of the facilities are facing an acute shortage of oxygen, which prompted the Delhi high court to order the central government to divert all supplies from steel and petroleum plants to hospitals.

The court told the Indian government to immediately stop oxygen supplies to industrial units and ramp up medicine supplies and vaccinating people. It warned that the country was heading for a big disaster and “we may lose a crore (10 million) people if we do not act in time.”