A violent fire burned down the two- story building of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) here Friday night.

The UMFCCI is the largest private business organization in the country.

The fire started at about 9 p.m. local time (1430 GMT) and an adjacent three-story old residential building comprising nearly a dozen apartments were also destroyed by the fire which was brought under control two hours later.

No casualty or injury were reported and the cause of the fire is unknown and is under investigation.

According to an official report Saturday, another fire, caused by electric hot plate left switched on, in the morning on the same day in the suburban area of Hline burned down nine houses, leaving more than 100 people of 17 households homeless.

The Hline fire was the third in the same township since November. The first three-hour fire, caused by negligence, razed a densely-populated slum quarter, burning down a total of 1,557 small wooden and bamboo-walled houses and leaving 1,962 families homeless, while the second burned down a dozen houses in February.

Again in January, another violent fire totally destroyed a children amusement center underneath Myanmar's world famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The two-hour fire, which occurred at the Happy World Children Amusement Center in the Kandawmin Park opposite to the southern gate of the pagoda, resulted from an electric short circuit at a ghost train rail track riding by children.

The fire injured some people and destroyed property worth of 10 million Kyats ( about 10,000 US dollars).

According to the fire department's statistics, a total of 835 fire broke out in Myanmar in 2005, suffering a loss of over 2 billion Kyats (1.6 million US dollars) and standing the second largest of such loss since 2001 during which 868 fire cases occurred with a loss of 4.83 billion Kyats (4 million dollars).

Myanmar suffered most from the natural disaster of fire compared to others, registering over 900 fire cases annually in the past decade, statistics show.

The authorities have warned the public against the occurrence of fire due to negligence or other causes as it enters the dry season.

Source: Xinhua