Five Covid-19 patients die in Romania hospital fire

A fire broke out in Romania's main hospital for coronavirus patients on Friday, killing five in the second such incident in three months.

Emergency responders in capital Bucharest found three patients dead at the Matei Bals hospital and could not resuscitate a fourth. The body of a fifth victim was later found in one of the bathrooms, Interior Minister Lucian Bode said.

Fire broke out on the hospital's ground floor around 5 am (0300 GMT) and soon reached four wards, while 102 patients had to be evacuated to other hospitals, fire chief Orlando Schiopu said.

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Visiting the scene some hours after the blaze was put out, President Klaus Iohannis called the fire a "tragedy".

"We are dealing with a structural problem in Romanian hospitals and I asked the health minister to come up with a reform plan," Iohannis told reporters.

Earlier in November, a fire in an intensive care unit of a hospital in the northeastern town of Piatra Neamt killed 15 people being treated for Covid-19.

The two hospital fires recalled Romania's previous deadliest blaze, which killed 64 at Bucharest's Colectiv nightclub in October 2015 and itself prompted angry questions.

Romania has so far registered 18,105 Covid deaths, 721,513 cases and 666,001 recoveries.