A fire has killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation centre in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, officials say.

Television pictures showed flames leaping through barred windows of a single-storey wooden building.

The fire in a ward for bedridden patients was initially caused by an electrical fault in the building, a government statement said.

Thirty-one people were rescued during the incident, the General Prosecutor's office said.

Four people were taken to hospital, according to Azerbaijan's news agency APA.

The blaze, which broke out just before dawn, was fanned by strong winds. It took around three hours for fire fighters to extinguish it.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev visited the site of the fire, the Republican Narcological Centre, after it was extinguished, local media said.

The former Soviet nation has a chronic shortage of rehabilitation places for its 30,000 registered drug addicts.

Nearly 3,000 people applied for places at the centre in 2015 alone, and a new clinic with 250 places has recently been built.

Moscow. 2nd of March. INTERFAX.RU - More than 200 patients and a man of medical personnel were evacuated during a fire at the Republican Narcological Center in Baku, which killed 24 people, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Health told Interfax.

"The majority of patients and medical staff at the Drug Center, numbering more than 200 people, were evacuated in a timely manner," the ministry said. It seems necessary medical and psychological help.

"Despite the measures taken, the life of 24 people could not be saved," the Ministry of Health noted.

As previously reported, the fire began at 6:10 am on Friday local time, a one-story wooden building of the Narcological Center. In this case, 34 people were rescued directly from the building where the fire occurred.

According to preliminary information, the fire occurred because of malfunctions in the transmission line.

On this fact a criminal case was opened. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took an investigation into the causes of the fire under personal control.