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| Police officers stand guard after a fire occurred inside a rehabilitation centre in Lima. At least 27 patients of a rehabilitation centre for alcoholics and drug addicts were killed |
The Christ is Love centre for drug and alcohol addicts was unlicensed and overcrowded and its residents were apparently kept inside "like prisoners," Health Minister Alberto Tejada said.
Authorities said 26 people died at the scene, and prosecutors spokesman Raul Sanchez said Saturday night that one of six men hospitalised in critical condition died later.
Peru's fire chief, Antonio Zavala, said most of the victims died of asphyxiation. All the victims appeared to be male.
The local police chief, Clever Zegarra, said the cause of the 9am fire was under investigation.
"There has been talk of the burning of an object, of a mattress, but also of a fight that resulted in a fire. All of this is speculation," he said.
"I've been here at the scene from morning to evening but for the moment the exact cause of the fire is not known."
One resident of the centre on a narrow dead-end street in Lima's teeming San Juan de Lurigancho district said he was eating breakfast on the second floor of the centre when he saw flames coming from the first floor, where the blaze apparently began.
Gianfranco Huerta told local RPP news radio station that he leaped from a window to safety.
"The doors were locked; there was no way to get out," he told the station.
By early afternoon, all the dead had been removed from the centre.
"This rehabilitation centre wasn't authorised. It was a house that they had taken over ... for patients with addictions and they had the habit of leaving people locked up with no medical supervision," Tejada, the health minister, said.
Authorities said they did not know how many people were inside the centre at the time of the fire. They said they were looking for the centre's owners and staff, some of whom apparently fled the scene.
The local police chief, Zegarra, identified the owner as Raul Garcia.
Zoila Chea, an aunt of one victim, said families paid Garcia $37 to treat an addicted relative and $15 a week thereafter.
She said that neighbours had constantly complained about the centre and that it had been closed twice by authorities.
Chea, 45, said relatives were prohibited from seeing interned patients during the first three months of treatment, which she added consisted mainly of reading the Bible.
Her nephew, Luis Chea, was at the centre for a month, she said.
Zavala, the national fire chief, said the blaze was of "Dantesque proportions." Firefighters had to punch a hole through a wall with an adjoining building to help people trapped inside.
"We've had to use electric saws to cut through the metal bars of the doors to be able to work," Zavala said.
Relatives of residents gathered near the building weeping and seeking word of their loved ones. As the day wore on, nearby sidewalks filled with relatives mourning and trying to console one another.
One of them was Maria Benitez, aunt of 18-year-old Carlos Benitez, who she said was being treated at the centre.
"I want to know if he is OK or not," she told ATV television.
