At least seven babies have died after a fire at a children’s hospital in New Delhiafter the flames broke out around midnight on Saturday, official sources reported this Sunday.

“12 of the newborns were rescued but, unfortunately, seven of them died of asphyxiation,” the Indian capital’s Health Minister, Saurabh Bharadwaj, told the Indian news agency ANI on Sunday morning.

The incident took place at a children’s hospital. Baby Care Hospital, in Vivek Vihar, a neighborhood in the east of the city. According to local media, five children are in hospitals receiving medical attention.

The head of the Delhi Government, Arvind Kejriwal, assured that “government and administration officials are busy providing treatment to the injured on the spot,” while stating in a message on X that “the causes of the incident are being investigated and the person responsible for this negligence will not be saved“This is a heartbreaking incident,” he lamented.

According to city fire department officials, the flames could have been caused by explosion of gas cylinders in the building, although this thesis has not been corroborated For the police.

Images of the exterior of the hospital show the building and adjacent vehicles completely consumed by flames. The parents of the children admitted to the center are still waiting for confirmation of the deaths, in the absence of DNA tests to corroborate the identity of the bodies, relatives told the press outside the hospital.