At least 30 people, including several children, were killed when a fire ripped through a private home that operated as a matchstick factory in Indonesia on Friday, authorities said.
Pictures from the scene showed blackened corpses lying on top of each other in the burnt-out house after the blaze, which authorities said broke out early Friday afternoon.
TV footage showed plumes of black smoke billowing from the home in the town of Binjai in North Sumatra, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) west of provincial capital Medan.
“We don’t know what caused the fire but it has been extinguished,” the head of North Sumatra’s disaster agency Riadil Lubis told AFP, adding that at least three children were among the dead. “We’ve sent teams there,” he added.
Resident Budi Zulkifli was headed to the local mosque in the Muslim-majority nation when the fire broke out.
“I was about to go out Friday prayers when there was a loud explosion,” he said. (AFP)
