Eleven people died in a fire at a shelter in Algiers, the capital of Algeria.

The country’s civil protection department said another 19 people were injured in the fire, which firefighters began fighting at 3:30 a.m. local time (04:30 GMT) on Thursday.

They were still trying to extinguish the fire a little more than three hours later, when authorities released an update on the situation.

His statement did not specify the ages of those killed or injured.

The Civil Protection department deployed 10 fire trucks and 16 ambulances to the scene.

Algeria has been suffering a heat wave for several days and in one week nearly 1,000 fires have been recorded, the AFP news agency reported.

Algerian state media said Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb traveled to two hospitals in Algiers to visit people injured in Thursday’s fire.

The report was accompanied by a photograph of Ghrieb next to a child in a hospital bed.

Amid the fire, five people with special needs were “treated and transported to a safe location,” officials said.