ISTANBUL: Nine people were killed in a fire which broke out in a private hospital’s COVID-19 intensive care unit in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Saturday.

The fire was caused by the explosion of an oxygen ventilator, the local governorship said in a statement, adding that other patients receiving treatment were transferred to nearby hospitals.

Two prosecutors in the province were commissioned to investigate the cause of the explosion, the local prosecutor’s office said.