Orphans die in Romanian sewer fire

Two orphans died and five people were injured after a fire broke out in a sewer they had sheltered in to keep warm, Romanian police said today.

The fire was probably started by a candle that the occupants had lit, police spokesman Cornel Diaconu said in Bucharest.

The flames ignited piles of clothes and mattresses the children were probably sleeping on, he said. Because it was an enclosed space, they were soon overwhelmed by the gases.

Police noticed smoke rising from a manhole yesterday afternoon and called in the fire department.

Police said the victims were two boys, aged between 10 and 12, who lived at an orphanage hundreds of miles away in the eastern city of Tulcea. They died from burns and inhaling poisonous gases, he said.

The injured people, four men and a woman, were treated in hospital for carbon monoxide inhalation and burns.

Hundreds of young people live in Bucharest sewers. Many of them have run away from state orphanages.