Eleven people have died in a fire at a foster care facility in Algiers, Algeria’s capital city.

The country’s civil protection department said 19 others were injured in the blaze, which firefighters began to tackle at 03:30 local time (04:30 GMT) on Thursday.

They were still attempting to extinguish the fire just over three hours later, when the authorities released an update on the situation.

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

The civil protection department deployed 10 fire engines and 16 ambulances to the scene.

Algeria has been experiencing a heatwave for several days, and nearly 1,000 fires have been recorded in the space of a week, the AFP news agency has reported.

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

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

Amid the fire, five people with special needs were “taken into care and transported to a safe location”, the authorities said.