Soon after the sudden fire at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)-run Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) Treatment Isolation and Treatment Centre at the Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhiya Sunday night, field teams started working round the clock to regain normalcy in hospital facilities and camp lives.
Health services will be resumed soon at the hospital of which one-third was burnt with zero casualties, said the IOM Monday.
IOM teams are now on the ground to assess the damage and assist those in need.
Earlier, IOM teams, volunteers, and the government response services rushed to the hospital and worked hard to put out the fire and assist those in need of support.
The IOM teams are also working to inform the refugees about how to act in such sudden fire situations.
A fire ravaged the extended Rohingya camp at Kutupalong in Ukhiya upazila, Cox’s Bazar Sunday, burning at least 20 houses and the IOM-run health centre, officials said.
However, no injuries were reported from the fire.
The fire that burned the houses and the health compound started at around 7pm at Camp-20 Extension.
The cause of the fire at Block D of the camp was not immediately known, said Naimul Haque, commander of Armed Police Battalion (APBn-14). “However, no casualties have been reported in the fire so far.”
At first, Ukhiya fire service rushed to the camp, and later two units of firefighters from Cox’s Bazar fire service joined them, Md Abdullah, deputy assistant director of Cox’s Bazar fire service, said.
The IOM hospital staff and patients were evacuated to a safer area, while the organisation’s staff and Rohingya volunteers, assigned to the disaster management unit, immediately started to contain the fire, Tarek Mahmud, national communication officer at IOM Cox’s Bazar, said.
“By around 7:35pm, the fire brigade arrived on the spot and could tame the flames by 8:10pm. One of the three main areas of the compound sustained fire damage. The reason for the fire is unknown.”
The fire damaged one of the three areas in the compound. However, no areas around the compound were damaged, Tarek said.
Source: United News of Bangladesh