INTERNATIONAL: At least 27 people are feared dead and dozens more have been rescued after a fire broke out in an eight-storey building at a busy shopping district in Japan’s Osaka on Friday morning.

Three people were confirmed dead by the hospital where the victims of the fire were rushed to

The fire started on the fourth floor of the building at the Kitashinchi entertainment district.Police are looking into the possibility that the blaze was deliberately started.

Local media said the victims had suffered "cardiopulmonary arrest," a term often used in preliminary reports before a death is officially confirmed.

All of those feared dead appear to have been in a clinic when the fire occurred.

Rescue officials were alerted to the fire on Friday morning, and it was successfully extinguished 30 minutes later after it has burned across an area of approximately 215 square feet.The fire was reported shortly after the clinic opened for business at 10 a.m. and was mostly extinguished within 30 minutes.

Other floors of the building, which is near the Osaka's main station in the centre of the city, were occupied by a beauty salon, a clothes shop and an English-language school.