(Updates with detail)

MELLE, Belgium, Aug 6 (Reuters) - A nursing home fire killed nine pensioners in the northern Belgian village of Melle on Thursday, officials said.

"There was an electrical device that caught fire, it spread, a mattress caught fire, and that spread in the halls -- but the people were killed by the smoke, not by the fire," said Julie Clement, a spokeswoman for Belgium's east Flanders region.

She said nine were dead, and three in critical condition.

Clement added the Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest nursing home, where some 92 elderly people live, had not been destroyed and would not require long-term closure. (Reporting by Anne Jolis and Yves Herman)

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