Residents sift through debris a few hours after a fire swept through a poor neighbourhood of Navotas, Manila. -- PHOTO: AP
MANILA - TWELVE people were killed in a huge fire that razed some 100 houses in a poor residential area in the Philippine capital on Sunday, authorities said.
Investigators said the fire at suburban Navotas city, north of Manila, began before midnight Saturday and lasted for about five hours, local social welfare official Pat Agcaoili told local radio.
City fire marshal Felis Medes said 11 people who were trapped in the burning structures were killed, while another person died in a hospital while being treated.
'Five of those killed were children,' he told reporters.
Arson investigators said they had yet to determine the cause of the blaze.
Radio reports quoted witnesses as saying that a mentally disturbed resident was seen playing with petrol in one of the burnt houses earlier in the day. -- AFP
