As he sat outside the mortuary on Monday, Swapnil Borge was shell-shocked. His son was born only a day before, and although he’d not even seen his face yet, Borge went around distributing sweets to anyone he came across – staff of the government hospital, fellow patients and even passers-by.

“Chehra pan pahila navhta mi ajun (I hadn’t even seen his face yet),” he said. “I don’t know how to tell my wife about this. Pooja la kalla tar bohot bekar kaam hoil [It would be terrible if she knew].”

Borge’s newborn son is one of three newborns who died in a fire at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the government-run Amravati District Women’s Hospital. Officials said the fire, which broke out in the early hours of Monday, could have been caused by a fault in a ventilator in the NICU.

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“The incident took place around 4 am at the NICU of the hospital,” Amravati Collector Ashish Yerekar told . “There were 39 babies, of whom we were able to rescue 36, while three died. When the fire broke out, there were nine babies — one on a ventilator and eight on warmers. The baby on the ventilator and two babies who were next to him died in the incident.”

Crowd outside the mortuary.

Thirty-two of the rescued babies have been referred to other hospitals, while four babies have been kept with their mothers. Dr Vinod Pawar, District Surgeon, Amravati, said: “According to the preliminary information, it appears that there was an explosion in the ventilator.”

Police have registered three cases of accidental deaths.

Minister for Public Health and Family Welfare Prakash Abitkar, who visited the hospital and met the affected families, told the media that a committee headed by Health Commissioner Sanjay Katkar will look into the incident and submit a report in seven days.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his condolences and promised action. He announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased. “Orders have been issued to the health administration to conduct a high-level inquiry into this incident. The strictest possible action will be taken against those responsible for this incident. Both the Health Minister and the Secretary have been instructed to visit Amravati today itself,” he said on X.

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NICU ward at Amravati hospital where a fire broke out.

‘We rushed in with torches’

At the hospital, staff and witnesses recounted the chaos. “We had no idea what was happening. There was a lot of smoke, so we immediately started rescuing the babies and used fire extinguishers. We could barely see anything. The entire ward was engulfed in flames immediately after the explosion,” one staffer said.

Mura Bhai, whose grandson was in the NICU, was among those who helped rescue the babies.

“We were sleeping on the veranda in the hospital when we received the call. It was completely dark inside the ward, and we rushed there with the torches in our mobile phones to help the nurses. Some babies were already trapped and could not be saved.”

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NICU ward at Amravati hospital where a fire broke out early on Monday.

Officials said the Maharashtra government had provided the ventilators. “A similar minor blast occurred in one of the ventilators at the same hospital in 2022, although there were no casualties then. The ventilators were subsequently replaced. One of those replaced ventilators caught fire,” one official said.

Sources at the hospital said the building’s fire audit had lapsed on August 21 and that the hospital had alerted the PWD. They also mentioned that the fire alarm at the ward too did not function.

Families, meanwhile, are still struggling to come to terms. Gayatri Chopade’s family has moved her to her hometown of Anjangaon and ensured there is no television to relay news of the fire that killed her baby.

NICU ward at Amravati hospital where a fire broke out.

“Her baby had swallowed stool in the womb and was shifted from Warud to Amravati. The baby had almost recovered, and Gayatri was discharged from the Warud hospital this week. We learnt about the baby’s death around 7.30 am,” said her husband, Prafull Chopade.

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The family of Kiran Bethekar, whose baby daughter died in the fire, is similarly distraught. “We didn’t see the baby for an entire week,” said her mother, Vasanti Kale. “We brought the baby to the hospital from Achalpur last Monday at 10 pm.”

Heena Kausar Taslim Khan’s family hasn’t told her about the fire. Heena had twin daughters on August 22, one of whom died during surgery. The surviving baby was rescued from the fire and has been moved to a private hospital. “Doctors have advised us against telling her about both her daughters,” her mother Sultana Bi Sheikh Kalandar said.

Crowd gathers outside Amravati hospital after the NICU fire tragedy.

District Surgeon Dr Pawar said he received information of the incident in the morning and immediately informed the fire department. “By then, the staff at the hospital had rescued six babies. Fire extinguishers were used, and the fire brigade also sprayed water, but the smoke did not subside,” he said. However relatives alleged that the fire brigade arrived after the fire was put out.

Outside the mortuary, some passers-by consoled Swapnil Borge, but he just nodded. When he looked up, he said: “I saw the NICU catching fire in front of me. I heard a woman scream while I was searching for my baby. I learnt at 7 am that my child is no more. Kiti vichar kela hota, sonyacha karil, chan naav thevil, khaun ghetla mazya lekrala. [I had thought so much about him. I would buy him a gold ornament, give him a good name]. But they ate my son alive.”