24 dead in Azerbaijan drug rehab center fire
Twenty four people died as a result of a fire which tore through a drug rehabilitation clinic in the Azerbaijani capital Baku early Friday, AFP reported citing local officials.
"At 06:10 am a fire happened at the Republican Narcological Centre in Baku," the General Prosecutor's Office, the health, interior and emergencies ministries said in a joint statement.
"The bodies of 24 people have been found."
The blaze tore through a one-storey wooden ward, the statement added.
It cited a defect of the power grid as the initial cause of the blaze.
Earlier Friday Azerbaijan's APA news agency reported that at least 30 people had perished in the blaze.
It said the fire broke out in a ward for bed-ridden patients.
Firefighters and rescuers of the country's emergencies ministry have extinguished the blaze and were investigating the causes.