Ten newborn babies died after fire broke out in the Special Newborn Care Unit of a hospital in Maharashtra in the wee hours on 9 December, doctors said.

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All the infants were between a month and three months old, a doctor said. Fire broke out in the Bhandara district hospital at around 2 am, he said. There were 17 babies in the unit and seven were rescued, he added. Another doctor said a nurse first noticed smoke coming out from the neonatal section of the hospital and alerted doctors and other staff who reached there in five minutes.

Fire brigade personnel rescued seven babies from the 'inbound ward' of the unit but could not save the 10 other babies, he said. The cause of the fire in the four storeyed building is not known but could have been the result of an electrical short circuit, he said.