MANILA (dpa): Fifteen people were killed in a fire that gutted a two-storey house turned into a clothes factory in the Philippines, officials said Thursday (Aug 31).
Three people escaped the fire by climbing out of a window on the second floor of the house in Quezon City in metropolitan Manila, said Nahum Tarroza, a regional director at the Bureau of Fire Protection.
"The victims were trapped in the house," he said in a radio interview.
"The fire started in front of the house, which was the entrance and exit, where there was an ongoing expansion."
Tarroza said investigators were still determining the exact cause of the blaze, which broke out at dawn while the victims were sleeping.
The victims were family members and workers who were staying in the house, which had been turned into a factory making t-shirts and other clothes.
It took firefighters nearly three hours to extinguish the fire.
Local officials said they were checking if the necessary permits were in place to operate a factory in the building.
The fire broke out after heavy rains that caused flooding in some parts of the capital, which delayed the response of firefighters, Tarroza said.
"We are also investigating that because some roads were flooded, traffic was bad, and apparently the wrong address was initially given," he said.
