2018 Baku fire
2018 CE.
Shown on the map at 40.205°, 49.572°.
On 2 March 2018, a fire broke out at the Republican Narcological Dispensary in Baku, Azerbaijan, a drug rehabilitation facility for patients with opiate addiction. Around 200 people including patients and members of the clinic staff had to be evacuated from the area, while 34 had to be rescued from the blazing building. At least 26 people died, and another four were hospitalized. Although the fire was initially blamed on faulty wiring, it later emerged that the fire had actually started when a patient tried to commit suicide by self-immolation. The individual had second thoughts at the last minute and tossed his burning blanket into the wooden ward, igniting the early morning inferno. Two days after the incident the authorities arrested former patient Mahammad Mammadov and charged him with murder and arson, among other crimes. Civil rights activists blamed government corruption for lax fire safety measures in the facility that may have led to the accident. In the aftermath, President Ilham Aliyev created a commission to investigate the underlying causes of the accident and announced plans to build a fully equipped rehabilitation centre nearby.
Text from the Wikipedia article 2018 Baku fire, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.