A fire broke out near the Emergency Ward at All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi on Saturday. It was later brought under control by firefighters and no casualties were reported in the incident.

34 fire engines were rushed to the spot to try to douse the fire.  As per initial reports, a short circuit is said to have caused the blaze.

The fire broke out at the first and second floors which are close to the emergency ward of the hospital, reports said. Fire department officials evacuated patients and staff from the building.

The emergency lab has been shut down after the fire broke out in the hospital.

A news agency reported that the areas which were affected by fire included Emergency Lab, B block of the area, Ward AB1, and Superspeciality OPD Area of the institute.

Thick black smoke could be seen billowing out from the top of the building of the AIIMS hospital.

A Delhi Fire Services official was said a call regarding the fire was received at around 4:50 pm today regarding a fire in PC and Teaching Block of the Hospital. A PC block is a ' non-patient' block which mainly consists of research labs and the likes.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to request people to remain calm and to allow fire brigade officials to do their work.

"The fire in AIIMS building will be brought under control at the earliest. Fire Service trying it's best to extinguish the fire. I appeal to everyone to maintain calm and allow the Fire Services personnel to do their work,"  the chief minister said in his tweet.

Notably, former finance minister Arun Jaitley is currently undergoing treatment at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the cardio-neuro centre at AIIMS, which is in a different building in the hospital compound.