Five persons, including two children and an elderly woman, died of “asphyxiation” after a fire broke out in a four-storey building housing on Saturday a furniture shop in Nampally, officials said on Sunday.

“We got information that five people were missing. We were able to retrieve all the five bodies, including those of two boys and an elderly woman from different places within the cellar of the building on Sunday,” a senior police official said. The other two men, in their 30s, among the five deceased were from Hyderabad, and were workers in the building.