A predawn fire tore through a hostel filled with international backpackers in this eastern Australia town Friday, killing 15 people and leaving three missing and presumed dead.
Firefighters used hydraulic platforms to bring 70 people to safety from the wooden Palace Backpackers Hostel in Childers, 200 miles north of Brisbane. Nine people were treated for smoke inhalation.
Eighty-eight people were believed inside the two-story structure when the blaze began, said local fire commissioner Jeff Wright.
Firefighters put out the blaze after about four hours. Authorities were searching through the ruins and trying to determine the cause.
The identities of the victims were not immediately known, but police said most of the victims were from Britain, Australia and Holland, with one each from Spain, Japan and South Korea; none was believed to be American.
Many of the hostel residents were foreign backpackers hoping to earn pocket money by picking vegetables and other produce on nearby farms.
One Briton described how she and others escaped the burning building.
“I was lying awake and all of a sudden I heard the most tremendous sound of cracking glass,” the backpacker, who did not give her name, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
“I screamed at the girls in my dorm, `Wake up!”‘ she said. “We were really lucky. We didn’t see the smoke or flames until we got out.”
