A fire tore through an overcrowded Indonesian prison in the early hours of Wednesday when most inmates were asleep, killing 41 people and injuring dozens of others, an official said.Firefighters extinguished the blaze – which was mostly contained within one block that housed prisoners jailed on drug charges – at around 3 am (2000 GMT Tuesday) and evacuated the victims.A video released by the Justice Ministry office showed the ceiling collapsing as the fire tore through the block."40 died

An explosion near Thai capital Bangkok's international airport Monday left a plastics factory in flames, killing at least one firefighter and wounding 29 people, officials said.Heavy plumes of black smoke could be seen rising up to the sky from the city's downtown 35 kilometres (21 miles) away, as helicopters continued to dump fire suppression foam from the air on the site.The blast occurred around 3:00 am at Taiwan-based Ming Dih Chemical Co., located on the outskirts of Bangkok ne

Sri Lankan authorities Sunday said they will sue the owners of a Singapore-registered cargo carrier which has burned for 11 straight days off the island's west coast and caused some of its worst-ever marine pollution.Police said a criminal investigation was also launched into the blaze aboard the MV X-Press Pearl, which was carrying 25 tonnes of nitric acid and a huge amount of plastic raw materials.The intense fire, still burning at the rear of the 186 metre (610 feet) vessel, has destr

Five people are feared dead and at least 20,000 Rohingya have fled a huge blaze engulfing shanty homes at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, officials said Monday, in the third fire to hit the settlements in four days.Nearly one million of the Muslim minority from Myanmar - many of whom fled a military crackdown in their homeland in 2017 - live in cramped and squalid conditions at the camps in the Cox's Bazar district.Officials said the fire apparently started in one of the 34 cam

An entire port engulfed in fire, ships ablaze at sea and crumbling buildings: the site of the massive blast in Beirut's harbour area resembled a post-nuclear landscape.Soldiers cordoned off the area, littered with glass and debris from the explosion which officials said was the result of fire catching in a warehouse where hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate were stored.A woman in her twenties stood screaming at security forces, asking about the fate of her brother, a port employee.&qu

Two people have been identified as suspects by authorities investigating a deadly fire at an Indonesian lighter factory that killed 30 people including several children, a police chief said Saturday. A man and a woman, named only as the owner and supervisor of the workshop, were arrested in North Sumatra's capital Medan shortly after the fire ripped through a rented home that operated as a lighter factory in the town of Binjai, about 70 kilometres (44 miles) west of the capital.