Nov. 5 (UPI) — At least 11 people were killed and 30 injured in a blaze at a high-rise retirement home in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Authorities said the fire broke out Tuesday evening at about 8.45 p.m. (2 p.m. EST) on the seventh floor of the facility in Tuzla, the country’s fourth largest city 70 miles northeast of the capital, Sarajevo.
Police said firefighters, police officers, medics, residents and staff at the home were among 20 people taken to the hospital.
Several people received treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning, with three in intensive care, said a spokesman for Tuzla University clinical center.
Images circulating online show the top floor of the building engulfed in flames.
Nermin Niksic, prime minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the country’s bipartite system of government, called the blaze “a disaster of enormous proportions.”
Tuzla is located in FBiH, one of two administrative entities portioning the country between Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats in the north and Bosnian-Serbs in central and southern areas born out of the 1995 U.S.-brokered Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian War.
The prime minister of the Srpska entity, Savo Minic, head of the country’s Serb region, said Tuesday night that his government stood ready to assist Tuzla in any way it could following the retirement home fire.
“The Government of the Republic of Srpska stands ready to assist the citizens of Tuzla with any kind of help following tonight’s tragedy. We feel the pain and are always ready to help. Our most sincere condolences to the families,” he said in a post on X.
Authorities said an investigation into the cause of the blaze was underway.