Police arrest suspect following fire at a Hanoi cafe

Eleven people died in a fire in a cafe in Hanoi on Wednesday night and police have arrested a man suspected of starting the blaze, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

The police said in a statement that the man had confessed to using gasoline to light a fire on the ground floor of the three-storey cafe after an argument with staff. The state-run Tien Phong newspaper reported the suspect is aged in his early 50s.

The police said the fire was first reported to them just after 11 pm (1600 GMT) on Wednesday.

"The fire blocked all the exits. The smell of gasoline was strong," one witness told the Tien Phong paper, while another reported hearing an explosion. Seven people were rescued from the fire, with two of them hospitalised, the police statement said.