27 killed in Philippine orphanage fire

27 killed in Philippine orphanage fire

Manila (Reuters)
A deadly pre-dawn fire devastated a Philippine orphanage on Thursday and killed at least 27 people, most of them children trapped on upper floors and babies abandoned in a nursery, officials said.
Police said at least three children were still missing by Thursday evening, some 15 hours after the fire ravaged the sprawling Associacion de Damas de Pilipinas orphanage in central Manila.
It broke out the day before a local company was to host a Christmas party for the institution, located just two kilometers from the presidential palace. President Joseph Estrada visited the orphanage during the day and said he would personally lead a campaign to raise funds for its reconstruction. Orphanage workers said some of those killed could not get out of the blazing three-storey wooden building because its exit doors were locked.
More than 50 people, 24 children and their guardians and employees, scrambled out of the building after the fire broke out at 2 a.m. (1900 CET Wednesday), Mayor Lito Atienza told reporters. Faulty wiring in the chapel or the adjoining library of the orphanage was suspected to be the cause. Atienza said he was ordering an investigation into reports that the first fire truck did not arrive at the scene until about an hour after the blaze started, although the orphanage is only 500 meters from the nearest fire station.
Firemen were initially unable to get into the building because of the furious heat. They began dousing the fire from the outside as columns of white smoke climbed into the moonlit sky. As the firemen shone flashlights into the darkened shell of the orphanage, they could see bodies of some children lying on the iron frames of beds. Most of the victims were trapped in the upper storeys, said one investigator, Redentor Alumno. For some children, especially the babies abandoned in the nursery, death would have come quickly because of smoke inhalation during sleep. But others awoke and screamed for help from windows. Only some of the older ones managed to clamber out and jump to the ground. Most of the survivors were sleeping on the ground floor.