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Azerbaijan fire: 24 killed at drug rehab centre in Baku | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
A fire has killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation centre in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, officials say. | |
Television pictures showed flames leaping through barred windows of a single-storey wooden building. | |
The fire in a ward for bedridden patients was initially caused by an electrical fault in the building, a government statement said. | |
Thirty-one people were rescued during the incident, the General Prosecutor's office said. | |
Four people were taken to hospital, according to Azerbaijan's news agency APA. | |
The blaze, which broke out just before dawn, was fanned by strong winds. It took around three hours for fire fighters to extinguish it. | |
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev visited the site of the fire, the Republican Narcological Centre, after it was extinguished, local media said. | |
The former Soviet nation has a chronic shortage of rehabilitation places for its 30,000 registered drug addicts. | |
Nearly 3,000 people applied for places at the centre in 2015 alone, and a new clinic with 250 places has recently been built. |