Austria ? A fire engulfed a home for the elderly in western Austria on Friday, killing at least 11 people, a local government spokesman said.

Six people were injured, three of them seriously, said Thomas Mair, a spokesman for the regional government in the province of Vorarlberg.

“It is a catastrophe, completely terrible,” Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer was quoted by the Austria Press Agency as saying after arriving at the scene late Friday.

Twenty-three residents and two supervisors were in the building when the fire started, Mair said. He could not immediately identify the dead or the injured.

The 11 victims died of smoke inhalation, APA reported.

Some 250 firefighters battled the blaze, eventually putting it out, Mair said.