Four babies killed in fire at maternity hospital

Multiple fire engines and ambulances were deployed to the scene (Picture: APA TV)

Four babies were killed in a fire at a maternity hospital just hours after their birth.

Footage shows firefighters rushing into the premises as flames were raging inside and bringing out newborns from the neonatal unit.

A crowd gathered outside the building in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in the late hours of last night.

Several engines pumped water towards the third and fourth floors, where the fire is believed to have started.

Firefighters carrying an incubator out of the building (Picture: Ministry of Emergency Situations)

A woman being helped down the stairs of the hospital (Picture: Ministry of Emergency Situations)

Fire engines outside the hospital in Baku (Picture: Ministry of Emergency Situations)

‘The corpses of four children who were treated in the neonatal intensive care unit of the center were found,’ a joint statement of the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Health and Medicine said.

Three other people were hospitalised with smoke poisoning, but their condition is stable.

Altogether 26 babies were evacuated from the maternity hospital, local media Axar reported.

Ministry officials later confirmed that the fire at the Republican Perinatal Center on Yusif Safarov Street in the capital was extinguished and that patients and visitors were evacuated.

A criminal investigation has been opened into the incident as the cause of the fire remains unclear.

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