A fire at a hospital in Saudi Arabia killed 25 people and injured more than 100 others as it ripped through the intensive care unit and the maternity ward before dawn, the Saudi civil defense agency said.

Details of the fire and its victims were scant, but photographs published on Twitter by the agency showed smoke and an intense blaze which appeared to have severely damaged the interior of the white-walled hospital.

The fire broke out at the general hospital in the southwestern port city of Jazan, the capital of the Jizan region, one of Saudi Arabia's poorest areas, near the Yemeni border.