WORLD> Asia-Pacific
Nursing home fire injures 33 in Japan
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-13 09:47

TOKYO -- A fire broke out at a nursing home in Sendai of Miyagi Prefecture in Japan early Thursday, injuring 33 people, three of them seriously, Kyodo News Agency reported.

The fire that broke out at 1:20 am burned about 20 square meters of a ground-floor room of the two-story reinforced concrete building before it was put out about an hour later, police and firefighters said.

All of about 40 people who were in the facility at the time of the fire, including staffers, were evacuated, they said.

Some of the injured were taken to hospital, they said, adding the three seriously injured were in their 70s and 80s.

A fire and ensueing explosion killed two people and injured two others in Tokyo's downtown Wednesday afternoon.