The fire appeared to be the deadliest in the Chinese capital in the past two decades.
It broke out in an inpatient building of the Changfeng Hospital in the city’s south at just before 1 p.m., and firefighters had largely put out the flames within less than 40 minutes, said the brief official report issued by the Beijing Daily, the city’s official newspaper. Dozens of patients were evacuated, but by early evening 21 people had died, apparently from the flames and dense smoke.

The death count may still rise, and the official report did not say whether any bodies may be left in the building. The toll has already surpassed that from a fire in the Daxing District of Beijing in 2017 that killed 19 people in a cramped apartment building housing migrant workers. In 2002, a fire at an internet cafe in the city killed 25.