Theme park, hospital fires kill kids, babies

Separate fires at a theme park and a children’s hospital in India on Saturday night killed 33 people, including four youngsters and six babies.

Twenty-seven bodies draped in white cloth were laid out before being taken away from the TRP amusement and theme park in Rajkot, Gujarat state while rescuers scoured the still smoldering structure where the fire started, Indian media reported on Sunday. The four dead children were all aged under 12, according to police, who warned that many of the corpses were so badly burned it was difficult to identify them.

There were more than 300 people in the theme park while the destroyed

two-story structure were packed with young people playing games and bowling when the fire broke out.

“People got trapped as a temporary structure at the facility collapsed near the entrance, making it difficult for the people to come out,” Rajkot fire officer Ilesh Kher told reporters on the night of the fire.

Outside the still-smoldering wreckage, the mother and sister of 20-year-old Asha Kathad — who had worked in the center — waited for news.

In the other fire in New Delhi, six infants died when the New Born Baby Care hospital in the Vivek Vihar area caught fire.

“Twelve newborn babies were rescued from the hospital with the help of other people,” senior police officer Surendra Choudhary said in a statement, but adding that when they reached medical attention, six were dead.

Delhi Fire Department Director Atul Garg said 14 fire trucks were sent to battle the blaze, he told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

“The fire spread too fast due to a blast in an oxygen cylinder,” Garg told PTI.