Blast at Baku's furniture workshop kills three

An explosion at a furniture workshop in Azerbaijan's capital Baku on Monday killed three people and injured two dozen others, officials said.

Rescuers could be seen lifting a man from the smouldering rubble of a burnt out building, video shared by the emergencies ministry showed, while firefighters combed the wreckage, AFP reported.

"The bodies of three people were found under the rubble. As a result of the incident, 24 people received injuries of various degrees," the prosecutor's office said.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear but prosecutors said they had lanched a criminal investigation into a breach of "fire safety regulations".

The incident comes a week after a blaze at a maternity clinic in Baku left four infants dead, a case the president vowed to personally oversee.

In April 2022, a gas tank explosion at a nightclub in the capital killed one person and injured 37 others.