Seven people killed in Taipei hotel blaze

Seven people were killed and one critically injured on Monday in the capital city's worst fire in 15 years, police said.

Seven people were killed and one critically injured on Monday in the capital city's worst fire in 15 years, police said.

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Twenty people were sleeping in a hotel when the four-storey building was engulfed by flames early in the morning, police said.

It took firefighters just 30 minutes to extinguish the blaze but they found seven bodies -- three Malaysian women and four Taiwanese men -- in the scorched building.

Police said they could not immediately identify the three Malaysian victims as their travel documents had been destroyed in the fire.

A 40-year-old man was severely injured after he was forced to jump from the fourth floor and land on a car parked outside the hotel.

Following an initial investigation, police said they suspected arsonists could have been behind the tragedy.

The hotel passed the safety authorities' routine check in January.