SEOUL, South Korea — A fire at a hospital that doubled as a nursing home killed at least 37 people on Friday in the southern city of Miryang, the latest in a string of tragedies that have heightened public concern over the country’s safety standards.

Officials said they were still investigating the cause of the fire that engulfed Sejong Hospital with flames and thick smoke. The fire, they said, erupted in the hospital’s main building. Firefighters and hospital workers evacuated patients from an annex that operated as a nursing home, carrying some of them on their backs.

Fire officials said more than 70 people were injured, a number of them seriously.