ASTANA -- Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov has announced that an investigation is under way into a fire at a drug rehabilitation center in the city of Taldy-Qorgan that killed 37 people on September 13, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
Forty-one patients were rescued by firefighters.
Almaty Oblast Deputy Governor Bolat Takenov told RFE/RL that the patients in the center were unable to escape because they were locked in the building.
All windows and doors at the center were blocked by metal bars, making it impossible for them to break out and escape the fire.