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Sixty people were inside the 30-room bar when the fire erupted.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, survivors described their harrowing escape from the blaze.
“We thought we would die,” karaoke parlour worker Do Thanh Tu told state media.
Authorities initially blamed an electrical short circuit for the blaze but said the bar had met all fire safety standards in checks over the past three years.
Police partly blamed drunken singers.
“They were drunk. So when the staff at the karaoke bar informed them about the fire … people in some karaoke rooms didn’t listen,” provincial police chief Trinh Ngoc Quyen said during a press conference.
In what was previously Vietnam’s deadliest fire, 13 people died in a 2018 blaze in an apartment complex in Ho Chi Minh City.
In 2016, a fire at a karaoke facility in the capital Hanoi left 13 people dead, prompting a country-wide assessment of fire prevention measures at bars and clubs.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has ordered a further inspection of high-risk venues, especially karaoke bars.
Last month, three firefighters died after trying to extinguish a fire at another karaoke bar in Hanoi.
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