At least 24 people have been killed in a fire at a drug rehabilitation clinic in the capital of Azerbaijan.

The fire broke out at 6am local time in Baku and was not put out until three hours later, police and prosecutors said.

They said a short circuit is believed to be the cause of the fire.

The Health Ministry said 200 patients and staff have been evacuated and 34 people have been rescued from the building.

The office of the Azerbaijani president said he had arrived at the scene to oversee the rescue effort. </s> BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Authorities in Azerbaijan say at least 24 people have been killed in a fire at a drug rehabilitation clinic in the capital.

Police and prosecutors said in a joint statement on Friday that the fire broke out at 6 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) in Baku and wasn’t put out until three hours later.

They said a short circuit is believed to be the cause of the fire. The Health Ministry said 200 patients and staff have been evacuated, and 34 people have been rescued from the building.

The office of the Azerbaijani president said he had arrived at the scene to oversee the rescue effort. </s> BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Azerbaijan authorities say 24 killed in fire at drug rehabilitation clinic.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Azerbaijan authorities say 24 killed in fire at drug rehabilitation clinic. </s> At least 25 people have been killed after a fire ripped through a drug rehabilitation center in the capital of Azerbaijan, officials said Friday.

The cause of the fire at the medical establishment in Baku was as yet unknown. </s> BAKU, Azerbaijan — At least 24 people died in a fire early Friday at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, the authorities said.

The police and prosecutors said in a joint statement that the fire broke out in an old, one-story wooden building around 6 a.m. and burned for three hours. The blaze was attributed to a short circuit.

The Health Ministry said that 200 patients and staff had been evacuated, 34 had been rescued and three had been hospitalized.

The office of President Ilham Aliyev said he had arrived at the scene to oversee the rescue effort and had ordered an investigation into the blaze. </s> BAKU, Azerbaijan — Authorities in Azerbaijan say at least 24 people have been killed in a fire at a drug rehabilitation clinic in the capital this morning.

Police and prosecutors said in a joint statement that the fire broke out at 6 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) Friday in Baku and wasn't put out until three hours later. A short circuit is believed to be to blame for the blaze at the clinic which is situated in an old, one-story wooden building.

The Health Ministry said 200 patients and staff have been evacuated, and 34 people have been rescued from the building. Three people have been hospitalized.

The office of the Azerbaijani president said he had arrived at the scene to oversee the rescue effort and ordered an investigation into the blaze. </s> A fire killed 25 people at a drug rehabilitation centre in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Friday, officials said. The fire broke out at the country’s Drug Abuse Treatment Centre at 6.10 am local time (7:40 am Indian time), the local news agency APA reported. It was put out after about two and a half hours.

Thirty of the 55 people who were in the building at the time of the fire were rescued, a government statement said. Three of them are in hospital.

Soon after the blaze was reported, ambulances and personnel of the fire and emergency services arrived at the building. Officials said the blaze was probably caused by a problem in the power network of the building. They have filed a criminal case and an investigation is under way.

Azerbaijan faces a chronic shortage of rehabilitation centres for its 30,000 registered drug addicts, according to BBC. </s> Twenty five people died in a fire which tore through a drug rehabilitation clinic in the Azerbaijani capital Baku early Friday, officials said, revising an earlier death toll.

"At 06:10 am a fire broke out at the Republican Narcological Centre in Baku," the General Prosecutor's Office, the health, interior and emergencies ministries said in a joint statement.

"According to the latest data, 25 people died in the fire," said the updated statement, which initially put the death toll at 24.

Four more people were hospitalized with serious burns, the statement said, citing a power grid defect as the initial cause of the blaze at the Health Ministry-run clinic in Baku's southern Khatai district near the Caspian Sea.

Thirty people managed to escape the single-story building and survive the blaze, which has been extinguished. Investigators have opened a criminal case into the incident.

President Ilham Aliyev went to the scene, Azerbaijan's APA news agency reported, while Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences.

Video footage broadcast on local television showed huge flames leaping through barred windows of a one-story wooden hospital ward.

Earlier Friday, 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.

It took some three hours for ten squads of firefighters and rescuers from the emergencies ministry to extinguish the blaze.

The ex-Soviet Caucasus nation has a history of large-scale casualties as a result of fires in residential buildings and elsewhere.

In May 2015, 15 people - including five minors -- died in a fire in a multi-story building in Baku.

In October 1995, 289 people died in a metro fire in Baku, in the world's deadliest subway disaster that was caused by outdated Soviet equipment.
At least 25 people are killed in a fire at a drug-rehabilitation clinic in Baku, Azerbaijan.