Taiwan restaurant fire kills three (Roundup)

Nov 6, 2009, 6:44 GMT

   Taipei - An explosion and fire caused by a brawl between Vietnamese and Thai migrant workers in a Taiwan restaurant Friday left three people dead and seven injured.

   The fight started at a seafood restaurant in Kuishian township in northern Taiwan in the early hours of Friday after the Vietnamese group complained that the Thais were singing too loudly in the restaurant's karaoke room.

   Officials said they believe one Vietnamese man snatched a gas tank from the kitchen, turned it on and ignited it, before throwing it into the karaoke room, causing an explosion.

   Firemen found three bodies and rushed seven injured people to hospital. Police said all the injured were Thai migrant workers, but the nationalities of the three dead have not been confirmed.

   'The injured include six men and one woman. Among them, three suffered burns to 70 per cent of their skin, and the rest suffered burns to 10-30 per cent of their skin,' Yeh Fu-kui, a police officer at Kuishan police station, said.

   'Three Vietnamese suspects are being questioned,' he added.

   Yeh said a Thai worker who went to the restaurant to join his friends reported the fire.

   Taiwan has recruited some 300,000 foreign workers to ease its labour shortage. Most of them come from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.