A fire broke out at the private Kirti Krishna Bal Chikitsalaya in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, at about 4:00 p.m. on 16 July, filling the three-storey children’s hospital with thick smoke and triggering a chaotic evacuation. Hospital staff, relatives and local residents used makeshift ropes fashioned from sarees and bamboo ladders to lower patients from upper floors before fire-fighters reached the site. Officials said more than two dozen children were safely moved to other facilities; none of the patients, attendants or staff sustained serious injuries. Fire crews contained the blaze to the basement, where initial inspections point to a short circuit in battery-powered equipment as the likely cause. District authorities have opened an inquiry into fire-safety compliance at the hospital, whose extinguishers reportedly failed to operate during the incident.