Disasters: Hell in a Hospital

Hell in a Hospital

One fire fighter described the scene as "Dantesque." The term was an apt one for the inferno that engulfed 410 patients in a six-story mental hospital in suburban Buenos Aires late last week. Said one witness: "Some patients leaped out of the windows, and we could hear them screaming. You could hear explosions as windows shattered." As choking, disoriented inmates fled into the streets, a nurse, wrapped in a mattress cover, reportedly jumped to her death from the top of the building. Federal police sources put the death toll at 79, but it could go higher. It was estimated that at...

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