Chennai, Dec. 4 (The Telegraph): Fourteen intensive-care patients died at a private hospital in Chennai after their ventilators failed following the flooding of the basement generator room, hospital authorities said today.

Government health officials said the tragedy at MIOT Hospitals at Manapakkam happened early on Wednesday morning.

The hospital, whose multi-speciality facilities attract patients from across the globe, is located near the Adyar river. As the Adyar flooded and power substations got submerged, authorities were forced to cut power to the area.

Generators installed in the hospital basement then took over but only for a while before getting flooded, triggering a power failure across the hospital complex.

"The flooding began on Tuesday night and the power supply went off. We immediately shifted all the 30 (ICU) patients to the cancer block (two floors higher)," the MIOT managing director, Dr Prithivi Mohandas, said.

"But on Wednesday morning, we had no power at all as the generator sets got damaged in the floods and the ventilators, monitors and other equipment stopped working. We tried our best with manual support (oxygen masks and oxygen cylinders) but lost 14 patients."

He said there were 700 patients in the hospital when the torrential rain began on Tuesday. Rescue operations started on Thursday and 350 were shifted to other hospitals.

City authorities have installed pillars in riverside areas marking the "100-year flood line" - the highest rise in river level over the past century.

Dr Mohandas said the hospital's main block, where all its remaining patients have been put up, was built with its floor four times as high as the 100-year flood line but water still entered it this time.

Global Hospitals, 18km to the south, faced a similar crisis but the doctors and support staff managed to ferry 12 critical patients by boat and ambulance to a government hospital in central Chennai.

State health secretary J. Radhakrishnan said it was an extraordinary situation and that a formal inquiry would be conducted by the medical director. He asked other private hospitals to review their emergency protocols.

Airport, electricity

Chennai airport is poised to resume partial operations from tomorrow, while power is back in 80 per cent of Chennai. Most of the water bodies are still overflowing but the release has reduced.

Only light showers have been forecast for the next 24 hours, PTI added.

Photo credit: The Telegraph