TAIPEI - A spokesman for Taiwan's local defense authority said on Friday that a fire at the authority's building on Thursday evening killed two and injured four others.

One soldier and one worker died in hospital. The injured people are all in a stable condition, Luo Shou-he, the authority's spokesman, said.

Luo said the building's air conditioning system had a problem and a compressor in basement blew up when workers were trying to fix the problem. The blast generated a lot of smoke and triggered the fire prevention system.

The spokesman said the cause of the compressor explosion and the fire is still under investigation by fire-fighting authorities.