5 victims had been locked in

5 victims had been locked in

Eight women died in Manila yesterday as a fire engulfed a building where the women had been locked in by their employer, police said.

The women survived the blaze by climbing to the roof of the two-storey building and jumping off, said police officer Cris Gabutin, an investigator in the case.

"They said the gate was locked. It was dark and they could not find a way out. It was a lucky thing they were able to get out to the roof and jump," Mr Gabutin told AFP.

The bodies of the eight victims were found sprawled in one room, Mr Gabutin said.

"It was like they were trapped. Maybe they panicked and could not find their way out," he said.

He said that six of the dead women identified so far were aged between 19 and 24.

Mr Jayvee Arizapa, a neighbourhood watchman in the middle-class residential area where the fire occurred, said that neighbours saw the women leaping from the roof.

He said: "We could also hear people screaming for help inside, but we could not help them because the wall was too high."

OWNER ARRESTED

The women were all from rural areas who had been taken to the Philippine capital to work in a warehouse storing electronic products and computer disks, Mr Gabutin said.

They were sleeping in a building next to the warehouse when the fire started just after midnight.

While the cause of the fire is still unknown, police have arrested the building's owner, charging him with human trafficking, negligence resulting in homicide and operating a business in the area without a licence.

It is a common practice in the Philippines for low-paid employees to sleep in their place of work.

Employers typically do not provide enough safety measures for their workers and some are known to lock them in to stop them stealing or to prevent socialising.

In 2012, 17 workers in the southern Philippines died when a fire burned down a department store where they were sleeping.


This article was first published on May 31, 2014.
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