9 killed in overnight fire in US

An overnight fire killed at least 9 people on Saturday while another 25 people were missing in Oakland in United States, media reports said.

The blaze, one of the deadliest structure fires in Oakland history, began at about 11.30 p.m. on Friday during an electronic music party in a two-story warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area city, Xinhua news agency reported.

The party was reportedly scheduled from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., and dozens of people were inside at the time of the fire. The roof collapsed as people fled the second floor by a makeshift stairwell leading to the first floor.

While citing the number of casualties as the result of "a preliminary search", Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said initially that 13 people were unaccounted for.

"There's still a lot of the building that needs to be searched," she said.

Deloach-Reed noted that there was no sprinkler system in the structure.

Oakland Fire Department posted several messages throughout the night on its Twitter account, saying that fire crews would remain on the scene for several more hours to extinguish hot spots.

--IANS

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