At least 10 people have died in a fire unleashed in the early hours of Thursday inside a private hospital in Rio de Janeiro, which forced to urgently evacuate all admitted patients, according to the Fire Department.

The fire, which is already controlled, started from "a short circuit in the power generator " of one of the buildings of the Badim Hospital, located in the Maracaná neighborhood, in the northern part of the city, the medical center reported it's a statement.

"The entire management of Badim Hospital is determined to provide the necessary assistance to patients, who are being transferred" to other health facilities in the Fluminense capital, notes the note.

The flames caused a large column of smoke that spread rapidly through the building , forcing all the people inside it to evacuate.

According to the images disclosed in GloboNews, the patients admitted, several of them of advanced age, were removed in their hospital beds and waited for some time in the street, while ambulances were arriving for their transfer.

At the gates, scenes of despair were seen and doctors and nurses set up a kind of field hospital, outdoors, to continue attending to patients.

The firefighters, who took about two hours to control the fire, helped in the rescue efforts to get some of the patients still inside.

The Badim Hospital consists of two buildings. The fire broke out in the oldest according to preliminary information.

Inhabitants of the neighborhood, cited by the G1 portal, said that patients and officials began to leave the hospital around 18.30 local time (21.30 GMT) because of the enormous amount of smoke generated from the fire.

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