Jordan- Babies evacuated in hospital fire 

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) A minor fire that broke out in the nurses' station at the University of Jordan Hospital neonatal intensive care unit on Sunday caused no injuries but resulted in the evacuation of 23 newborns, a senior official said.

Around 6:00am, "a small fire started in the nurses' room and was quickly contained by Civil Defence Department (CDD) firefighters", the official, who declined to be named, told The Jordan Times.

Hospital officials and firefighters evacuated 23 infants to safer areas in the hospital after heavy smoke reached the section of the unit where premature or ill newborns are kept in incubators, according to the official.

"The evacuation was meant as a precautionary measure and no one was injured," the official said, adding that a committee had been formed to investigate the cause of the fire and foul play had been ruled out.

"We are still investigating the incident and there is a good possibility that the fire might have been caused by a short circuit."

Hospital President Mjalli Muhailan confirmed that the fire had been caused by a short circuit and stressed that the hospital's operations had returned to normal.

Noting that the evacuation of patients in some sections was a precautionary measure, Muhailan stressed that "everything is back to normal" and the evacuated infants were taken back to the unit "a couple of hours after containing the fire".

However, "we still need two or three days to rehabilitate the section where the fire broke out", Muhailan told The Jordan Times.