Nearly 250 stalls in a private market were destroyed in a suspected electrical fire in Battambang province’s Phnom Prek district on Monday night, police said yesterday.

District police chief Song Sopheak said 244 stalls were burned down after an electrical fire in a centrally located stall spread to others. According to Sopheak, no one was injured in the blaze because the fire began at night.

“It happened at 11:30pm on Monday night, and people living near the market tried to put the fire out, but they could not help,” he said.

“We used 18 fire engines from the provincial police station and many fire engines from Thailand, because it was close to the Thai border, so they helped to put out the fire,” he continued.

Sopheak said he did not know the exact cost of the damage.

Authorities and Red Cross officials have distributed “some aid” to affected vendors, and police don’t believe the fire to have been an act of arson, he said.