Fifteen dead in Philippines hotel fire

MANILA // Fifteen people have been killed in a fire that engulfed a hotel and a shop in the northern Philippines before dawn, 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, the 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, Mr Martinez said.

Twelve other injured people were taken to hospital, where all were in a stable condition. Police did not release the identities of the missing and injured.

"According to the fire investigator, the fire started in the other building, not the hotel," Mr Martinez said. The blaze apparently started in the shop's stock room, he added.