DEPUTY Minister of Industry and Commerce, Raj Modi said the fire that gutted down Mpilo Central Hospital hostels last might have emanated from a faulty and short circuit.
By Michael Gwarisa
Even though the fire brigade is yet to conclude their investigations, it is believed that residents of the hostels had reported seeing some sparks emanating from the distribution box or electrical room before.
Speaking to Journalists during a tour of the gutted down building, Minister Modi said there was need to scale up fire surveillance and detection systems at the institution to avoid recurring inferno induced disasters.
This is the second time this is happening here. The last time it happened it was an electrical appliance that was left on and this time its an electrical short circuit,” said Minister Modi.
He however urged the institution’s administration to pay attention so issues such as electrical faults and other reports and move swiftly before the worst happens.
“On the maintenance side i think there is neglect for some of the things. I hear that there were reports of some sparks that were being witnessed from the circuit board and were reported to the authorities. That’s where i believe that’s where the fire started.”
He added that government would assist in rebuilding the broken down hostels.
“Whatever happened is very bad, we all have to work together and make it work again. As a government, we want to do everything possible to help them finish the reconstruction of this building and everything to make it look normal again.”
Meanwhile, Mpilo Central Hospital Chief Executive Officer, Professor Solwayo Ngwenya said the gutted down building houses 30 workers and majority of them escaped through the windows in order to survive the inferno.
“We were woken up last night, there was a terrible fire and we rushed here and found three fire brigade vehicles already at the scene trying to bring down the fire. The fire was very ferocious, it spread very quickly throughout the whole building and the roof started curving in and collapsing.
“We found that people had jumped out through the windows and had collected some of their belongings. The building houses 30 workers and they jumped through windows. We were lucky that no one was seriously injured except a doctor who broke an ankle and someone who inhaled some fumes from the smoke,” said Prof Ngwenya.
He added that the estimated loss that was incurred from the fire was not less that US$500,000 and there was extensive damage to the top floor. He also concurred with Minister and said the residents had reported seeing a fire from a distribution box before and that could probably be where the fire started.
“The fire brigade will do an extensive investigation and let us know the extent and the cause of the fire. At the moment we are really shocked and we are saddened by this development. It is quite a massive loss of property and a building.”
He said this was actually the third time a fire of that magnitude has burnt down a building at the institution.
