A fire ripped through a makeshift Covid-19 hospital killing at least 14 people in North Macedonia late Wednesday evening.

Officials said today that at least 14 people were killed and dozens more injures in the blaze, which broke out in Tetovo town after an explosion rocked the modular hospital shortly before midnight on September 8. Footage shows the fire engulfing the building as thick clouds of black smoke billowed into the air.

North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said: ‘A huge tragedy has occurred in the Tetovo COVID-19 centre. An explosion caused a fire. The fire was extinguished but many lives were lost.’

Tetovo deputy fire chief Saso Trajcevski said the fire became huge because of the amount of plastic inside the hospital.

Injured patients have been sent to medical centres in the capital Skopje as authorities investigate the cause of the explosion.

Tetovo, with a population of roughly 50,000 people, is one of the country’s worst-hit regions in the pandemic. Its modular Covid-19 hospital was built last year to tend to patients infected with the novel coronavirus.