A crowd gathers People, policemen, and media personnel at the scene of the fire in Manila's Chinatown
A crowd gathers People, policemen, and media personnel at the scene of the fire in Manila's Chinatown AFP

A fire ripped through a building in the Philippine capital's Chinatown early Friday killing 11 people, authorities said.

People screamed as flames leapt out of upper-floor windows of the five-storey mixed use building in Manila's Binondo district, a witness said.

"I was about to open the store when I heard very loud screams of people then I saw this very huge fire from that top part of the building," Susan Sago, 55, a salesgirl at a pastry shop on the ground floor, told AFP.

"We ran swiftly to the other street."

More than 30 fire trucks rushed to the scene, getting the morning blaze under control about two hours later, the city's fire bureau said.

Rescue personnel later found the bodies of 11 people in upstairs residential units.

Senior Inspector Michael Ignacio of the Manila fire district told reporters six bodies were found on the second floor and five more on the third floor.

"It's possible that they were all sleeping" when the fire broke out, he said, adding they were likely killed by suffocation.

Grocery clerk Judy Ann Labao, 22, said she feared for the lives of two of her co-workers, a man and a woman, who rented rooms at the building and still had not shown up for work.

"He was supposed to work on the opening shift," she said of the missing man.

"We have not been able to contact them for hours," Labao added.

Ignacio said a middle-aged man found outside the building was also treated after he had difficulty breathing.

Initial enquiries indicate the fire broke out at a restaurant on the ground floor, he said.

"The initial information we got was that the LPG (cooking gas container) exploded (while) someone was cooking," he added.