15 missing, 12 injured in Philippines hotel fire
The Jakarta Post, Tuguegaro, Philippines | Sun, 12/19/2010 11:38 AM
A fire tore through a budget hotel
as guests slept early Sunday in the northern Philippines, injuring
12 nursing students and leaving 15 missing, police said.
The fire started on the ground floor of the five-story Bed and
Breakfast Pension House in Cagayan province's capital of Tuguegarao
city and raged for more than four hours before being put out by
fire, provincial police chief Mao Aplasca said.
At least 12 nursing students were taken to hospitals with minor
burns. Firefighters were able to enter the gutted building in
midmorning to search for the 15 reported missing by their friends
and relatives, he said.
Many of the guests were nursing students from nearby provinces
who planned to take a licensing exam in Tuguegarao, about 215 miles
(350 kilometers) north of Manila, on Sunday.
"Most of them were sleeping and they may have panicked when they
saw the fire," Aplasca told The Associated Press by telephone from
the scene, adding the missing may have been trapped in the
smoldering building or managed to run to safety.
A nursing college instructor, Romeo Opido, told police that about
36 nursing students were at the hotel. At least 27 made it out alive
while 9 others were among those missing.
