Thousands flee Cambodia fire

It was the fourth slum fire in a Phnom Penh this year

More than 12,000 people have been left homeless by a fire at a squatter camp in Cambodia - the second in three days.

At least one person was reported killed when flames swept through the shanty town on the banks of the River Bassac, in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Some of the families were given temporary shelter

Some 800 wooden shacks were destroyed, officials said.

On Monday, a fire razed another squatter camp in the city.

Most of the residents in the camps are ethnic Vietnamese.

A BBC correspondent in the region says the Vietnamese are unpopular in Cambodia, which was occupied by Vietnam for a decade.

Aid agencies in Phnom Penh are demanding a thorough investigation into the cause of the fires.

Unsafe heating blamed

The fire started at around midnight (1700 GMT on Tuesday), and spread across the shanty town about five kilometres (three miles) south of the city centre, police officials told the French news agency AFP.

People fled, carrying whatever belongings they could salvage on their backs, as people gathered on the Monivong Bridge to watch the spectacle.

A man tries to protect his belongings from the fire

"The municipality is cooperating with the Cambodian Red Cross to feed and provide temporary shelter for these people," said the Governor of Phnom Penh, Chea Sophara.

He said the fire was started by people using open flames to keep warm during the cold months of November and December.

The latest fire was the fourth in a year to destroy a shanty town in the capital.

A security guard at a nearby radio tower told AFP that more than 90% of the people living in the camp were Vietnamese.

Monday's fire was also in a camp that housed mainly ethnic Vietnamese. It broke out just hours after Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong arrived in Phnom Penh.

On Wednesday the Vietnamese president left for Siem Reap in the north of the country and was scheduled to leave Cambodia on Thursday.