Thirteen people were taken to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning in Rotterdam on Wednesday night.

The emergency services were alerted after a carbon monoxide alarm went off and residents in the housing complex in the city’s Charlois district reported a strange smell.

The carbon monoxide came from a generator which was running in one of the ground floor apartments, broadcaster Nos says.

In total, 24 people from six apartments were checked by ambulance workers and 13 were found to have raised concentrations of carbon monoxide in their blood.

Earlier this year, a woman in Charlois died of carbon monoxide poisoning and there were two similar deaths in the district in 2014.