Death toll in Iraq COVID hospital fire rises

PM promises accountability after blaze kills hospitalised COVID patients for second time in less than three months.

The death toll from a fire that tore through a coronavirus ward at a hospital in southern Iraq has risen to 92, health officials have said, as grieving relatives slammed the government over the second such disaster within three months. Officials said more than 100 people were injured in the blaze at al-Hussein Teaching Hospital on Monday night in Nasiriya, highlighting the crippled healthcare system in the country amid decades of war and sanctions. An investigation showed the fire began when sparks from faulty wiring spread to an oxygen tank that then exploded, police and civil defence authorities said.