Fifteen people, including six children, have been killed after they were trapped in a burning market in the southern Philippines.
The victims were sleeping in a padlocked building when the fire broke out before dawn, the blaze believed to have been triggered by faulty electrical wiring.
Vendors and their families regularly spend the night inside the market in the port city of Zamboanga to watch over their merchandise, mostly used clothes and vegetables.
All but one of the buildings many entrance and exit doors are left open for the night, police said.
"The victims were trapped in the burning building. They couldn't find their way out," Chief Inspector Joel Tuttuh said.
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Two of the six children who perished were one year old, he said, adding thirteen other people were being treated in hospital for severe burns.
Huge and sometimes deadly fires at sprawling slums, markets and factories are common in the Philippines, where fire safety regulations are sometimes wilfully disregarded.
Last May, 72 people were killed after a huge blaze tore through a footwear factory in the northern suburbs of the capital, Manila.
In one of country's deadliest-ever fires, 162 people were killed and 94 others were injured at a Manila disco in 1996.
