Eight children, five others die in house fire

Thirteen Pakistanis were killed yesterday when a fire broke out in a tin house on farming land in western Jordan.The dead were eight children, four women and a man, Jordan’s civil defence was quoted by the official Petra news agency as saying.The blaze erupted at dawn in the house where two Pakistani families were living in the al-Shuna al-Janubiyya area in Balqa province, west of Amman.The cause was a short circuit, the civil defence said.A man and two other children were injured and are being treated at hospital, it added.Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz ordered an investigation into the blaze and offered condolences to the people and government of Pakistan.According to official figures, around 8,000 Pakistanis live in Jordan and work in the agricultural sector.