Fifteen people were killed when a fire engulfed a hotel and a shop in the northern Philippines before dawn Sunday, police said. Investigators pulled 11 bodies from the shell of the five-storey hotel, named Bed and Breakfast, in Tuguegarao city after battling the blaze for four hours, city police chief Superintendent Pedro Martinez told reporters.
A couple and their two children who lived above a motorcycle parts store beside the hotel were also killed in the fire, he added. The dead included nine recent graduates of a nursing school, all male, who had checked into the hotel ahead of taking professional exams, Martinez said.
Twelve other injured people were taken to hospital, where all were in a stable condition Sunday. Police did not release the identities of the missing and injured.