A fire at a four-storey bar in Hai Phong city, northern Vietnam killed three female employees on Friday.
The fire broke out at around 2:00 p.m. and spread quickly from the first floor, trapping the women upstairs in the 90-square-meter bar, located at 144 Van Cao, Ngo Quyen district.
The only exit from the bar was on the first floor, and smoke billowed out forcing nearby shops to evacuate goods.
There were no customers at the time of the fire, only the four employees, who climbed onto the fourth floor balcony to call for help. A 21-year-old girl was rescued, but the other three were hit by falling debris and had to turn back inside.
Seven fire engines and dozens of soldiers attempted to tackle the blaze, with an ambulance waiting outside.
By 3:30 p.m., the fire was basically under control, and police wearing oxygen masks entered the building to search for survivors, as the owner and the victims' families gathered waiting for news.
At 6:30 p.m., the bodies of three females, aged between 18 and 21, from Hai Phong city, were discovered.
Ngo Quyen district provided VND10 million ($426) to each of the victims' families, and a further VND5 million ($213) to the woman who escaped.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The bar is located on a central street with restaurants, hotels, bars and pubs, and a large community of South Koreans.
Previously, 33 people had died after a karaoke parlor in the southern province of Binh Duong caught fire on September 6, 2022.
On August 1, 2022, three firefighters had died in a search and rescue operation launched after a fire broke out at a six-storey karaoke parlor, then spread to the roof and lower storeys, at 231 Quan Hoa street in Cau Giay district, Hanoi.
In November 2016, a karaoke parlor fire in Hanoi's Cau Giay district had killed 13 people. The parlor on Tran Thai Tong street was a tube house, with a sealed design, no ventilation windows and a large billboard on the wall outside. It took firefighters six hours to put out the fire.