A fire at a hospital in Bucharest where Covid-19 patients were being treated has killed at least five people.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of the Matei Bals hospital and forced the evacuation of a building that houses 100 people.

An unspecified number of people were injured before firefighters put out the blaze, Romanian emergency services said in a preliminary report.

“We found open flame at the ground floor of the building. … There was a lot of smoke, and there was a chance the fire would spread to the second floor,” said Orlando Schiopu, the commander of the intervention unit at the scene.

Read Arafat, the emergency department chief, said four victims were all hospital patients. Three of them were already dead when found while rescuers tried to resuscitate the fourth victim but could not, he said.

Authorities later said the body of one more victim had been found.

Hours later, charred balconies could be seen at the hospital, where health authorities organised the start of the anti-virus vaccination in Romania.

The Balkan country of some 19 million people has reported more than 700,000 cases and 18,000 deaths.