ISLAMABAD — Twisted ceiling frames, charred walls and a shaft of sunlight piercing a partially collapsed roof were all that was left of a neonatal ward on Thursday after a devastating hospital fire killed 14 infants in Pakistan.

The door of the former nursery for premature babies was blown off and the room is now a black hole at the end of a brightly lit corridor in Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the capital’s leading public hospital.

The acrid smell of smoke hung over the area and a soft chatter of voices rose as officials streamed in and out, taking notes as investigations began into why the fire broke out around dawn on Wednesday.

Outside the ward, staff used water to clean the floor, while others rubbed soot and grime off the walls.

Just a few metres away, life was returning to the hospital, with patients admitted to wards while doctors and nurses bustled around the facility’s maze-like corridors.

But tensions remained palpable, with police and security personnel patrolling inside the ward – a special facility for mothers and children – while guards carrying assault rifles or long sticks stood outside the entrance and on the building’s grounds.

The heightened nervousness was underscored by security guards blocking photographers and videojournalists from entering the hospital.

A nurse, who was visibly unsettled and asked not to be identified, told AFP that the hospital was probing the circumstances of the fire and “doesn’t want its reputation to be damaged any further”.

“When the fire broke out, everything happened within minutes,” the nurse said.

“People are right, we ran for our lives because by then it was too late. The fire had spread everywhere, and there was nothing we could do.”

The national government has already launched an investigation, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reportedly personally supervising the process.