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Ten people were killed and around 20 injured when a fire broke out late Tuesday at a nursing home in northeastern Bosnia, police said.
“According to preliminary information, 10 residents of the Tuzla retirement home lost their lives in the fire,” a police spokeswoman said in a statement.
Around 20 people, including firefighters, police, medical workers, staff and residents, received treatment at the Tuzla University Clinical Center, she added.
The nursing home said the fire erupted on the seventh floor around 8:45 p.m. (7:45 p.m. GMT) and confirmed that 10 residents had died. The blaze was brought under control shortly afterward.
Firefighters from Tuzla and the nearby cities of Srebrenik, Zivinice, Lukavac and Kalesija assisted in extinguishing the fire.
“I had gone to bed when I heard a cracking sound. I don’t know if it was the windows in my room breaking,” resident Ruza Kajic told the BHRT national broadcaster. “I live on the third floor … I looked out the window and saw burning material falling from above. I ran out into the hallway. On the upper floors, there are bed-ridden people.”
Footage broadcast by local media showed flames coming from an upper floor of the building.
Police said a full investigation into the cause will begin once conditions permit.
Bosnia’s presidency chairman, Zeljko Komsic, offered condolences to the victims’ families and wished a speedy recovery to the injured, BHRT reported.
Nermin Niksic, prime minister of the Muslim-Croat entity, called the fire a “disaster of enormous proportions.”
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