Covid hospital in Romania Photograph:( Reuters )
It was the deadliest fire in Romania since October 2015, when a pyrotechnics display caused a blaze at a Bucharest nightclub which left 64 people dead.
Ten Covid-19 patients were killed and a few were in critical condition after fire broke out in an intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital in the town of Piatra Neamtin in northeast Romania on Saturday.
The fire occurred in the early evening in the ICU. It was under control an hour later by the emergency services.
"Ten people have been declared dead and seven people are in critical condition," including a doctor, said hospital spokeswoman Irina Popa.
It was the deadliest fire in Romania since October 2015, when a pyrotechnics display caused a blaze at a Bucharest nightclub which left 64 people dead.
Eight of the victims died in the flames and two others were pronounced dead following their evacuation.
The doctor on duty, who tried to help the victims, suffered second and third degree burns to 80 percent of his body.
The cause of the blaze was unclear and the prosecutor general opened an enquiry into the tragedy.
Romania recently seen weekly mounting numbers of cases and hospitalisations. On Saturday it reported 129 new virus fatalities, bringing total deaths to 8,813 since the start of the pandemic.
The country of 19 million residents is one of the poorest in the European Union and ill-equipped to deal with a spike in hospital cases.