• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

Massive Mandalay market fire destroys 1,500 shops

YANGON
Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:31pm EST

YANGON (Reuters) - A huge fire which raged for 13 hours through a big market building in Mandalay, Myanmar's second city, injured 21 people and destroyed more than 1,500 shops, official media and witnesses said on Tuesday.

World

Four Buddhist monks and three women were among those injured in the fire which took 78 fire engines and more than 4,000 people to put out on Monday, they said.

Altogether, 1,558 shops, including computer training schools, in the four-storey Yadanabon Market Building were destroyed in a fire started by an electrical fault on the ground floor, state-run newspapers said.

There was also a major fire on Monday on the western outskirts of Yangon, the former capital of the military-ruled country, which left nearly 3,000 people homeless after destroying 200 houses, the newspapers reported.

They said the fire in Hlaingthayar Township began with a kitchen accident.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Michael Battye)



More from Reuters

Afghan insurgents kill CIA agents, Canadians

KABUL (Reuters) - Insurgents intensified their campaign against military targets and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, killing eight U.S. CIA agents at a base and four Canadian servicemen on patrol and a journalist accompanying them.

Floor traders work at the Hong Kong Stocks Exchange, January 16, 2008.   REUTERS/Bobby Yip

My way or the highway?

Hong Kong is poised to accept Beijing's accounting standards. That's good. The system, though, is prone to scandal. That's bad.  Full Article 

People walk past a branch of Bank of America in New York's financial district April 28, 2009. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Move your money

Boycotting "too big to fail" banks is a great idea -- so long as investors remember that banks aren't the only ones responsible for the crisis.  Full Article