Fire Kills More Than 30 In Drug Rehabilitation Center In Iran

Following a fire in a drug rehabilitation camp in Gilan province in northern Iran, 32 people have been killed and 16 people have been injured, local media reported on Friday.

Preliminary investigations indicate that a heater in the opium rehab camp in Langarud in the Caspian Sea province of Gilan was the cause of the fire that spread to the rest of the area, Reuters reported.

The fire was called in to the fire department before 6 am on Friday but the exact cause is yet to be determined.

The Chief Prosecutor of Gilan announced that the camp managers and officials responsible are under investigation, referring to the transfer of the bodies of the deceased to the forensic laboratories.

The Mizan News Agency, affiliated with the judiciary, also stated that the maximum capacity of the facility is 40 people according to statistics. However, it is unclear how many people were actually living in this camp at the time of the fire.

Images of the fire reported by ISNA showed it lighting up the sky and sending huge clouds of smoke into the air around the camp.

Other pictures showed emergency staff, firefighters and ambulances gathered outside the heavily damage site after the fire was stopped. The images show that the roof of the facility has been destroyed and the windows have been broken.

In recent years, there have been numerous fires with casualties in Iran which experts say are the result of bad management by authorities and lack of funding for up-to-date infrastructure.

In January 2017, Plasco shopping center in Tehran caught fire, killing at least 22 people including 16 firefighters. The incident was a major tragedy and it highlighted major flaws in Iran’s safety standards and firefighting capabilities.