More than 30 bodies found in burnt Philippine mall: Fire chief

This photo taken on December 23, 2017 shows Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte (second from right) comforting a relative of one of the victims after a fire engulfed a shopping mall in Davao City on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. (Photo: AFP/Presidential Photographers' Division/Kiwi Bulaclac)

The regional chief of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Wilberto Rico Neil Kwan Tiu, told weeping relatives of the missing that he personally counted "around 36" bodies in an office lobby at the burned down NCCC shopping mall in Davao.

Mayor Sara Duterte said earlier that 38 people were missing and believed to have died in the fire, with one other unidentified body recovered on Sunday.

Philippine authorities ordered a criminal investigation Monday into a shopping mall fire that killed dozens of people, most of them call centre staff from an American firm.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre announced the inquiry earlier on Monday as the government initially raised the toll from Saturday's NCCC mall fire in the southern city of Davao to one dead and 38 missing.

The fire compounded the Christmas misery in the south of the mainly Catholic nation where tens of thousands were also displaced by floods and landslides from a storm that also killed more than 200 others on Friday.

"By punishing those responsible, we can set an example to others so that, hopefully, there will be no repetition of those tragedies," Aguirre said in a statement.

Deadly blazes occur regularly in the Philippines, particularly in slum areas where there are virtually no fire safety standards.

US-based market research company SSI confirmed on its website late Sunday that 37 of its 500 employees were "lost" from its Davao unit, which leased the four-storey building's top floor.

"TERRIBLE TRAGEDY"

"This terrible tragedy has left us with heavy hearts. We offer our condolences and prayers to the families and loved ones of the victims," chief executive Gary Laben said in the statement.

The company said it has arranged for counselling for its employees, and will support funeral arrangements and set up a fund to assist the bereaved.

Local authorities on Sunday said no-one trapped in the fire would have survived and firemen have only managed to retrieve one unidentified body so far.

Davao Mayor Sara Duterte, a daughter of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, raised the toll from the tragedy on Monday, saying 38 other people apart from the recovered body found were missing - two more than previously listed.

The city's fire marshal had described the shopping mall as "an enclosed space with no ventilation", though the authorities said they had yet to determine the cause of the blaze.

The building's administrators on Sunday denied allegations from survivors that there were inadequate emergency fire exits and that some of them were locked.

"There is no truth to that allegation. In fact as per accounts of those who got out, they were able get out thru the fire exit," Thea Padua, the mall's public relations officer, told AFP by text message.

SLOW RECOVERY

Some relatives of those missing criticised rescuers for what they felt was the slow pace of recovery efforts.

"They seem so relaxed," said Jolita Basalan, weeping as she waited for news of her missing 29-year-old son Jonas who worked at the call centre.

"They are not pained because they don't have a child there. They told us to come here but no one is moving," she told AFP.

Corruption and exploitation mean supposedly strict fire standards are often not enforced in the Philippines.

In 2015, a fire tore through a footwear factory in Manila, killing 72. Survivors of that blaze blamed barred windows and other sweatshop conditions for trapping people inside the factory.

In the deadliest fire in the Philippines in recent times, 162 people were killed in a huge blaze that gutted a Manila disco in 1996.

With low wages but strong English language skills, the Asian nation is a popular destination for international companies to set up customer call centres in its big cities including Davao, 900-plus kilometres (more than 500 miles) south of Manila.