A major fire broke out at a hospital in Russia that is treating coronavirus patients on Saturday night, Russian news source TASS reported. At least one person reportedly died in the fire.
A video of the Moscow hospital on fire shows thick smoke coming out of the medical facility. The TASS report said that at least one person died in the fire.
A preliminary investigation indicates that a malfunction of medical equipment led to the fire, the emergency services said.
However, a thorough investigation for the cause of the fire will be held and a report will be submitted to the authorities, the official added.
The emergency services received a report of the fire at around 8.30 pm local time about a fire at the S.I. Spasokukotsky Municipal Clinical Hospital. The hospital is named after Russian surgeon SI Spasokukotsky and currently has been designated as a medical facility for treating COVID 19 patients.
Videos shared by the local Russia source claim that the emergency services were able to put out the fire by at around 9 pm local time.
At least one person died in the fire that broke out on the ground floor of the municipal hospital for COVID 19 patients, according to the Russian emergency services.
"We received reports about an open fire on the first floor of a six-storey building of City Clinical Hospital No. 50 on Vuchetich Street", a representative of the city's emergency services reported Sputnik.
More than 200 patients housed at the Moscow hospital have been evacuated to another facility.
Russia Coronavirus
Russia has registered 10,817 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 198,676, the national coronavirus response centre said on Saturday.
Russia's coronavirus taskforce said that 104 people had died overnight, bringing the national death toll to 1,827.
Russian coronavirus cases overtook French and German infections this week to become the fifth-highest in the world.
With coronavirus cases spiraling out of control in Russia, help has been extended to the country from an unlikely ally.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted his offer to provide ventilators to aid in the fight against the novel coronavirus causes a potentially deadly respiratory illness, adding that Russia is having a hard time with the disease.
Trump and Putin spoke by phone on Thursday, where they discussed the coronavirus as well as arms control, Reuters reported citing The White House.
