WHERE does one begin? The mind goes first to the parents of the 14 newborns who died early Wednesday in the Mother and Child Health Ward of Islamabad’s Pims Hospital. The heart falters at the sheer scale of their loss.

Their grief is shared across the country by people still struggling to comprehend how a tragedy of this magnitude was allowed to happen, and who must be held responsible. Multiple explanations have been offered for the fire: a short circuit, a spark, or an explosion involving an air-conditioning unit or its compressor. And every aspect of this incident unveils a new tragedy.

Officials say the purified oxygen that should have been a lifeline for infants in respiratory distress instead accelerated the blaze........

© Dawn