Nine people died Sunday night after an assisted living facility caught fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, officials said, with elderly people begging for help from first responders as smoke poured out of the building.

A Massachusetts assisted-living center where nine residents died in a fire was cited for failing to immediately report more than two dozen health and safety incidents.

Brenda Cropper, 66, is in critical condition after a blaze broke out at a Fall River assisted living facility on Sunday night. Nine people have died and 30 more were injured.

There’s no doubt in my mind that that fire was destined to kill 50-plus people,” Fall River Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon said Wednesday.

More than 75 percent of Gabriel House residents are enrolled in Medicaid, state officials have said, and it charges significantly less than a typical assisted living facility does for private-paying patients.