A FIRE that spread through a South Korean hospital with no sprinkler system has killed at least 37 people, many of them elderly, and injured more than 140 others.

The fire started in Sejong Hospital’s emergency room yesterday morning and had engulfed the first floor when firefighters arrived.

They approached the second floor through the windows to rescue trapped patients, with the flames extinguished before reaching the third floor.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. The hospital’s operations were suspended after the fire.

All the dead were from the hospital’s general ward, while all 94 people being cared for in a nursing ward for the elderly were safely evacuated after the fire, some carried on the backs of firefighters.

Most of the dead were being treated for respiratory diseases in an intensive-care unit on the second floor. Three of the dead worked at the hospital.

Son Kyung-cheol, head of the foundation that operates the hospital, said in a televised briefing that the hospital did not have sprinklers as it was not required by law.

Most of the deaths appeared to be due to suffocation, with only one suffering burns.

President Moon Jae-in expressed regret over the blaze at an emergency meeting convened with his senior advisers.