Fire broke out at a mattress factory in the Moroccan coastal city of Casablanca on Saturday killing 55 people, state news agency MAP reported. Twelve others including a police officer were seriously injured in the blaze which took hold on the ground floor of the factory and quickly engulfed the four-storey building, MAP said.
Around 100 of the factory's 150 employees were on site when the fire broke out at around 10 am and it took more than 100 fire-fighters over three hours to bring the fire under control. "People said the fire-fighters got there within half an hour but didn't find enough water to stop the blaze," eyewitness Abdellatif Khaloul told Reuters by telephone. "I heard that many factory workers were trapped on the upper floors and cried from the windows for help."
Parts of the factory were still smoking early evening and rescue workers searched the charred remains for more bodies as hundreds of local residents stood watching nearby, he said. An inquiry was launched to determine the cause of the fire at the Rosamor Ameublements factory in the Hay Hassani neighbourhood of Morocco's economic capital.
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