AKIPRESS.COM - The death toll in a rubber slipper factory fire in a suburb of the Philippine capital climbed to at least 45 on Thursday with another 26 people still missing in the gutted building and feared dead, a local mayor said.

The toll was expected to rise as police recover more bodies from inside the Kentex Manufacturing Corp. factory.

Mayor Rex Gatchalian of Valenzuela city north of Manila said a search for bodies restarted Thursday after it was suspended late Wednesday because of the heat and worries about the instability of the two-story building.

He said at least 30 people had been injured and expressed hope that some of the missing may have escaped.

“The city government is still praying and hoping that the 26, some of them, must have gotten out earlier in the morning and had gone to relatives and have not logged on at city hall. So we are still hoping that the number 26 will still go down,” he said.