PH
Irbil – A fire that began in a hotel and spread to a nearby massage parlor has killed 19 people and injured several others on Friday in Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Nawzad Hadi, the governor of Irbil, said the fire broke out at Hotel Capitol at 16:00 on Friday afternoon. He said that 15 of the victims were identified as from the Philippines, three were Iraqis and one was Palestinian.
The victims died after becoming trapped in a room in the massage parlor, which firefighters on the scene said had taken them around an hour to enter because of the strength of blaze. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to speak to the press.
The cause of the fire is still unknown. There were no early indications that the incident was a terrorist attack.
