HANOI: At least a dozen people were dead and more than 50 others injured due to a fire that erupted at a nine-storey apartment building in Hanoi, officials in the Vietnamese capital said on Wednesday.

According to preliminary statistics, as of 5 a.m. on Wednesday, authorities had rescued some 70 people and sent 54 others to hospital, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

The fire broke out first at the first storey of the block with a floor area of over 200 square meters, where some 150 people live, in Khuong Dinh ward, Thanh Xuan district, reports Xinhua news agency.

In the first eight months of this year, Vietnam saw 1,286 fires and explosions which killed 69 people, injured 64 others, and caused property losses of nearly 200.7 billion Vietnamese dong ($8 million), the country's General Statistics Office said.