Philippines factory fire kills at least 16, where flooding and a wrong address delayed firefighters

Most of the victims appeared to be factory workers and carpenters who were sleeping in rooms when the fire broke out Thursday morning.

Some were found dead on an aisle outside the rooms and the factory owner and his child were among the dead, Chief Superintendent Nahum Tarroza of the Bureau of Fire Protection said.

“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.”

Among the fatalities were the couple who owned the house and business and their 3-year-old child.

Tarroza said the body of another child was found in the debris as firefighters were clearing the rubble.

“Hopefully there will be no more additional victims,” he said.

Three people survived with injuries by jumping off the second floor of the two-storey factory in panic, Tarroza said. The three were taken to a hospital.

The firefighters’ arrival was delayed by about 14 minutes after a monsoon-season downpour and wind caused flooding and traffic jams and a wrong address was given to 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.

Investigators were still determining the exact cause of the blaze.

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 blaze.

Local officials said they were checking if the necessary permits were in place to operate the factory.

The factory stored combustible materials and textile used in making apparel and also printed designs on shirts used for business promotions, village officials said.

Construction of buildings and residential enclaves that do not conform to safety standards and lax enforcement of safety regulations have caused deadly fires in the Philippines in the past.

A 1996 nightclub fire killed 162 people, mostly students celebrating the end of the school year, in Quezon City. About 400 people were packed in the Ozone disco when the fire started, but many were unable to escape because the emergency exit was blocked by a new building next door.

Ninety-three others were injured in the blaze, one of the biggest nightclub fires in the world in recent decades.

Additional reporting by dpa