Fire at a home in Mirandela. Twenty people were discharged.

Of the 25 people injured in the fire that broke out in a Misericórdia de Mirandela home in the early hours of Saturday, 20 have already been discharged from hospital, the institution's ombudsman told Lusa this Sunday.

Adérito Gomes told Lusa that the patients hospitalized in Macedo de Cavaleiros have already been discharged. However, of the five elderly patients who required the most care and were considered seriously injured, one remains in intensive care at the Bragança hospital and four at the Mirandela hospital.

The head of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Mirandela assured that the injured did not suffer any burns, but are hospitalized due to smoke inhalation. Adérito Gomes believes that the four patients hospitalized in Mirandela will be discharged in "one or two days."

A short circuit in an electric anti-bedsore mattress is believed to have caused a fire that killed six elderly people on Saturday, three of whom were burned and three others died from smoke inhalation, at the Bom Samaritano nursing home of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Mirandela. The fire injured 25 people, five of whom were seriously injured.

The alert was raised by the three employees on duty. According to video surveillance cameras, the employees had made their rounds "10 minutes before" the fire broke out, the ombudsman told Lusa news agency on Saturday. It is also known that the smoke alarm did not go off.

The Judicial Police are investigating the case.