A fire at a house used as a T-shirt printing factory in the Philippines killed at least 15 people on Thursday, including the employees, the business owner and his relatives, officials said.
The fire broke out at 5:45 a.m. in a home in the Tandang Sora neighborhood of Quezon City, a densely populated suburb northwest of the capital Manila, a police report said.
When the fire alarm went off, 37 fire trucks were sent to the scene of the fire, according to the Quezon City precinct police report. The fire was extinguished two hours later, according to police.
The dead included workers at the store, including quality inspectors, printers and a driver, many of whom lived in the home and were in their 20s, police said. The business owner, Michael Cavilte, was 44 years old.
Two people were injured but survived, police said: a worker and Erick John Cavilte, 25, the owner’s son. However, the son’s wife and their three-year-old daughter died.
The fire broke out in the center of the building and spread quickly, making escape difficult, said Marcelo Ragundiaz, chief of the fire department in Tandang Sora.
An investigation was carried out into the cause of the fire. Authorities are also investigating possible violations of building codes, fire codes, occupancy permits and other regulations, according to Quezon City officials. It was unclear whether Mr Cavilte, the owner, had a license to operate the business in the home, Chief Ragundiaz said.
Previous deadly fires around Manila have raised questions about whether safety standards were being followed. A 2015 fire at a slipper factory in Valenzuela, a suburb north of Manila, killed at least 72 people. A fire at a hotel in Quezon City in 2001 killed at least 75 people.
The worst fire in the country’s recent history killed 162 people in a Quezon City nightclub in 1996—mostly students attending high school and college graduations.
