9 killed in hospital fire in Iran

Nine people were killed Tuesday morning in a fire that broke out in a hospital in northern Iran, Iranian television reported.

Iranian television said the fire, which is now under control, broke out at 1:30 a.m. local time in a hospital in the city of Rasht, the capital of Gilan province, and that an investigation has been opened to determine its cause.

"Nine people died in this fire," Mohammad Taghi Ashoubi, president of Gilan University of Medical Sciences, told television.

The hospital has 250 beds, 142 of which were occupied at the time of the fire, according to the same source.

In November 2023, a massive fire destroyed a drug rehabilitation center in the town of Langarud in the same province, killing 32 people.

In June 2020, a powerful explosion caused by gas cylinders that caught fire at a clinic in northern Tehran killed at least 19 people.