Fire rips through building in Manila’s Chinatown, killing 11

A fire ripped through a building in the Philippine capital’s Chinatown early Friday, killing 11 people, authorities said.

Crews from 14 fire trucks took two hours to control the morning blaze in Manila’s Binondo district, the city’s fire bureau said in an initial report.

Rescue personnel later found the bodies of 11 people inside the five-storey mixed-use building, it added.

The cause of the blaze and identities of the victims were not immediately known.

By noon, mortuary vehicles were waiting on the street to take the bodies away.

“The wife of the building owner was among those that died,” Nelson Ty, an elected official for the community where the fire broke out, told radio station DZRH, adding that vendors had used the structure to store their goods at night.

The Philippines has a patchy record in enforcing fire safety in buildings, homes and offices.

Sixteen people died in a fire at a residential and warehouse building in August last year, while a massive fire engulfed the capital’s historic Central Post Office building in May 2023.

In 2017, a fire at a shopping mall in southern Davao City killed 37 call centre agents and a security officer.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters