TOKYO: Five people have died in a blaze at a rice cracker factory in Japan, police said Saturday, with firefighters working through the night to extinguish the inferno.

Around 30 workers were on site when the fire broke out at the facility in northern Niigata prefecture around midnight, local media reported. The cause of the fire is unclear.

“We confirmed the death of four women between 60s and 70s and we also found an unidentified body,” a police spokesman told AFP without giving further details.

Public broadcaster NHK reported officers were working to identify the body as one of the two missing male workers, with another hospitalised but conscious after inhaling smoke.