<span style="color: #222222;">Twelve people, including eight children, were killed early on Wednesday when flames swept through a public housing apartment building in the US city of  Philadelphia.<br />''</span><br />''The blaze began at around 06:00 local time (11:00 GMT) in a public housing block in the north of the city. Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy told reporters it was one of the worst fires he had ever seen.<br />''<br />''He added that eight other residents had managed to escape the building. It is believed there were 26 people in the three-storey block at the time of the fire.<br />''<br />''The building is owned by the government funded Philadelphia Housing Authority, and it has been legally divided into two apartments since the 1950s.<br />''<br />''Officials said that at the last inspection of the building in 2020 there had been four working smoke detectors, but none of them went off during the fire.<br />''<br />''Mr Murphy told reporters that while authorities do not currently consider the cause of the fire to be suspicious, there will still be a thorough investigation due to the loss of life.<br />''<br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Speaking during the press conference, the city's Mayor Jim Kenney said, that this is without a doubt one of the most tragic days in the city's history, the loss of so many people in such a tragic way. He said, losing so many kids is just devastating.</span><br />