ISLAMABAD: The cause of a fire that killed 14 newborn babies at a major state-run hospital in Pakistan’s capital remains undetermined, lawmakers said on Thursday, questioning an earlier account by the health minister that an electrical spark from an air conditioner had triggered the deadly blaze.

The fire erupted early Wednesday in the nursery on the third floor of the maternal and child health ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), one of Islamabad’s largest public hospitals. PIMS said in a preliminary account that a spark inside the nursery at 6:38 a.m. was followed within seconds by a massive fire involving oxygen points at incubators. Within a minute, the hospital said, there was a “huge blast” and parts of the ceiling collapsed.

Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal had told reporters CCTV footage showed a spark falling from an air conditioner to the floor before flames engulfed the room within a minute. He said oxygen being supplied to the newborns appeared to have accelerated the fire. Oxygen itself is not flammable but can cause other materials to burn more rapidly and intensely.

“We saw and cross-questioned [hospital staff] here and we saw with our own experience that the source of the fire has not been determined,” Dr. Mahesh Kumar Malani, chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Health, told reporters after lawmakers inspected the hospital on Thursday.

Malani said the air conditioner identified by the health minister as the apparent source of the spark had not been operational “for quite some time,” while the other two air conditioners in the nursery were portable units.

He said lawmakers had also received a different account from a PIMS doctor, who suggested a spark had come from tangled electrical wires, while nurses told the committee they had been occupied with their duties when the fire started.

“So, no one saw where this spark came from and how did it take place,” Malani said. “So we have arrived at this conclusion that no one knows what the source of fire is.”

The committee chairman also questioned whether oxygen supplied to the babies had contributed to the rapid spread of the fire in the manner initially described by officials.

“Maybe there was a fault with the concealed oxygen pipes,” Malani said, adding that the oxygen supply to newborns ran through concealed piping.

The precise cause and circumstances of the fire are now the subject of multiple investigations.

Questions have also emerged over whether the nursery itself was suitable for critically ill newborns.

“We think this nursery was not fit for babies to be kept here,” Malani said, describing it as an old ward built in 1990.

MULTIPLE INQUIRIES 

PIMS said on Wednesday that two doctors and two nurses were inside the nursery when the fire started and immediately alerted security personnel. Staff twice attempted to enter the nursery to rescue babies before the blast and ceiling collapse, according to the hospital.

The hospital said one baby was rescued from the nursery and four from an adjacent room, along with three mothers, while another 73 patients were evacuated from the adjoining gynecology ward.

Health Minister Kamal acknowledged after the fire that PIMS did not have a sprinkler system, saying staff had used fire extinguishers to try to contain the blaze. PIMS subsequently said 35 extinguishers had been used.

The disaster has intensified scrutiny of fire safety at public facilities in Islamabad. A 2026 survey of 6,500 public and private buildings in the capital, including 300 government facilities, found most had not obtained approval for fire-safety plans or been issued completion and fire-safety certificates, according to the Capital Development Authority.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday suspended Federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri, the ministry’s highest-ranking civil servant, and appointed a high-level committee headed by former federal interior secretary Shahid Khan to investigate the disaster.

The committee is expected to record statements from hospital staff, witnesses and families, make l recommendations to Sharif within 48 hours and submit a comprehensive report within five days.

The Islamabad district administration has separately ordered an investigation into the cause of the blaze, the adequacy and functionality of fire-safety measures and the response of rescue and firefighting services.

The deaths have also prompted scrutiny beyond the federal capital. Authorities in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, have ordered an immediate review of fire-safety systems and emergency-response facilities at hospitals following the PIMS tragedy.

The blaze was among Pakistan’s deadliest recent tragedies involving children and has raised broader questions about fire-safety standards and emergency preparedness at government-run health facilities.

With additional inputs from AP