15 killed in pre-dawn fire in Osaka Japan

Ten others were rescued -- three of them seriously injured -- as the blaze broke out in a video house on the first floor of the seven-story building in Naniwa Ward in Osaka city, they said, adding they received an emergency call at around 3 a.m.

All of the dead, found in individual rooms of the video house, were male customers, while nine men and one woman were rescued, according to firefighters.

The fire was put out in about an hour and a half after burning some 30 square meters of the floor, they said. There were 32 individual rooms -- each measuring 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters deep -- at the video house.

The video house manager said the fire might have started in one of the individual rooms. Some 20 customers are believed to have occupied the rooms.