SAO PAULO (Reuters) – At least 10 people died and 11 were injured in the early hours of Friday morning in a major fire at a guesthouse in Brazil’s southern city of Porto Alegre, said the Rio Grande do Sul state fire department, which is still searching for the missing.
The firefighters said they were called at around 2 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Friday and extinguished the fire within two hours, according to the fire service.
“Forensics are already on the scene and have already removed the bodies. The building has been cordoned off and forensics are in charge,” Lieutenant Colonel Lucio Junes da Silva said in an interview with CNN Brasil.
Junes da Silva said there is still no information on the possible causes of the fire.
The facility did not have a license to operate as a guesthouse, nor did they have a fire-fighting plan, according to the fire department.
In the building where the guesthouse operated, the rooms were very close together, making it easy for the flames to spread and difficult for the guests to escape, the fire department said.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Fernando Cardoso; Writing by Steven Grattan; Editing by Louise Heavens)