An air conditioner compressor should not decide who lives and who dies.
But that was, according to the initial investigations, what happened at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad. The appliance exploded inside the newborn ward, and the fire spread so quickly that staff only managed to rescue one baby. The other 14 babies died from burns so severe that DNA tests are now needed to identify them and return them to their families.
Muneeba, a witness who managed to escape with her nephew and sister-in-law, saw the chaos of those minutes up close. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari sent their condolences and ordered an investigation; the government has already dismissed Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri. A committee made up of police, firefighters, and technical authorities is now trying to answer something that should have been resolved earlier: why a public hospital did not have the conditions needed to protect the most vulnerable patients of all.