VIETNAM: A fire believed to have started in a disco swept through a five-storey commercial building in south Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City yesterday killing at least 48 people, Vietnam Television said.
Flames billowed from windows of the International Trade Centre, sending dense black smoke into the sky as workers from the foreign offices, shops, a disco and a restaurant tried to escape, many down steel ladders reaching up from fire tenders below.
TV showed a woman victim being carried away by two men, one a foreigner stripped to his waist, as hundreds of passers-by looked on.
The fire burned for about five hours before being put out at around 6.30 p.m. local time. But there are fears some office workers were trapped in the building and that the death toll will rise.
At least 59 people have been taken to hospital.
The TV report said the fire began in the Blue disco, Ho Chi Minh City's most popular dance spot, and swiftly spread to other sections.
City mayor Le Thanh Hai said the cause of the fire was unknown.
"We don't know the reason yet ... I haven't made any conclusion but it seems the inside capability of fighting fire is not too good."
Shops selling jewellery and DVDs occupy at least two floors of the centre, and US insurer American International Assurance is also a tenant.
"One of our people died, that's all I can confirm," an AIA spokeswoman told Reuters.
A source close to the insurance company said more than 100 of its staff were attending a training session in the building at the time of the fire.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Hanoi said he had not received any reports of American victims.
The TV report said said firemen on the scene were not fully equipped to fight the fire and lacked water. - (Reuters)