Children perish in mobile home blaze

Fire ripped through a mobile home in a hamlet outside Little Rock, Arkansas, killing at least six people, including five children.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler said youngsters in the neighbourhood reported that more children may have been in the home when the fire broke out shortly after 6pm yesterday, local time.

He said authorities would investigate the possibility the home in Humphrey may have served as a day-care centre.

“A search is under way, based on witness accounts, (for the bodies of) other children that may have been in the mobile home,” Sadler said.

The children who died were apparently not all from the same family, he said. The sixth victim appeared to be an adult woman. No names or ages were released.

Humphrey, a town of about 800 people, is about 40 miles south-east of Little Rock.