1 dead, 200 evacuated as fire hits Moscow hospital housing COVID-19 patients

A fire at a Moscow hospital treating people infected by the new coronavirus killed one patient and forced the evacuation of about 200 others.

News reports said the fire at the facility in the northern part of the city has been extinguished.

No cause was immediately determined for the fire, which affected a ward of the hospital that had been repurposed for treating victims of the new coronavirus.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed reports that a patient had died and said those evacuated would be transferred to other hospitals. It was not clear how many of the evacuees were suffering from COVID-19.