Three elderly people died in a fire that engulfed a hospital in the city of Tivoli, near Rome, overnight from Friday to Saturday, Italian media reported on Saturday, Reuters reports.

A fourth body was found in the San Giovanni Evangelista hospital morgue, but the victim was believed to have died before the fire broke out shortly before 11 p.m. (22:00 GMT) on Friday evening, the Ansa news agency reported.

Firefighters used escalators to evacuate about 200 people from the hospital, including a pregnant woman and several children.

The evacuees were taken to hospitals in other parts of Rome for treatment. According to mass media, the dead – two men and two women – were between 76 and 86 years old.

La Repubblica

According to the first investigations, the fire originated from a place where waste was stored.

Garbage piled up in large quantities in an open area caught fire. Under the windows of the trauma center. From there, the flames spread inside the building, first to the emergency room and then elsewhere.

According to La Repubblica, forensic police and fire experts will have to reconstruct how the fire started, whether it was negligence or something else.

“I smelled plastic and then the electricity went out,” one patient said, according to La Repubblica.