MOSCOW, Dec 9: A fire that swept through a Moscow drug rehabilitation clinic killed 45 women early on Saturday, officials said, as prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry for arson and fire safety breaches.

Many of the victims were trapped by metal bars on the windows when the blaze broke out on the second floor of the five-storey building, the emergency ministry said.

“As a result of the fire, 45 people died and 12 have been hospitalised with injuries of different levels of gravity,” the prosecutor general's office said in a statement.

Two of the dead were members of the hospital's staff.

“The Moscow prosecutor's office has opened a criminal inquiry into the fire,” said the statement, adding that the inquiry would be for `intentional destruction’ and `violation of fire safety rules’.

“This is a very serious and unpleasant incident, a tragedy,” said Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov, who visited the scene of the blaze, Interfax reported.

“It was most likely arson,” Luzhkov added.

“The fire started in the cafeteria of the old building. By the time fire fighters arrived, thick smoke was spreading,” Moscow's chief fire inspector Viktor Klimkin was quoted by ITAR-TASS as saying.

A total of 177 patients and 15 personnel were in the building at the time, he said. More than 20 fire engines could be seen by the hospital building.—AFP