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More than 100 injured, three missing in Philippines factory fire

Black smoke billows from a burning factory building belonging to House Technologies Industries, a Japanese-owned company, at the Export processing Zone (EPZA) in General Trias town, Cavite province, southwest of Manila on February 2, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A huge factory has caught fire in the Philippines, leaving more than 100 workers, including three Japanese, injured.

An official said on Thursday that in addition to those injured, at least three workers were missing after the fire hit the Japanese-owned House Technology Industries, south of the capital city Manila, where thousands of employees had been working.

About 10 of the injured were in critical condition, a local TV network reported, adding some employees jumped from windows to escape the blaze at the three-story building, where pre-fabricated house parts are manufactured for export to Japan.

The fire apparently started in a section where a machine used to manufacture house insulation materials overheated, the local TV cited Cavite province Governor Jesus Crispin Remulla as saying.

About 5,000 of the factory employees were on duty when the fire started at the factory which is located in a special economic zone in the town of General Trias, about 26 kilometers south of Manila.

In 2015, a fire in a rubber slipper factory in a northern Manila suburb killed 72 people.

Then president, Benigno Aquino III, ordered state officials to press criminal charges against the owners of the Kentex Manufacturing Corporation and local officials, who he said had ignored factory safety regulations.


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