A large fire swept through a shanty town near the port area of Manila in the Philippines om Sunday night, destroying about 1,000 homes and leaving more than 8,000 people homeless.

Thousands have been left homeless after a fire ripped through a densely built slum area of the Philippine capital Manila.

Manila firefighters had difficulty reaching the incident as the streets are narrow and terminal walls were high.

The fire spread rapidly through makeshift homes in Manila’s Tondo district, an official said, displacing 1,000 families. “It’s like you lit up a box of matches.”

Firemen tackled a huge fire that ripped through hundreds of slum homes in the Philippine capital Manila on Sunday. Footage shows a Philippine Air Force helicopter dumping water over the raging inferno in Isla Puting Bato - a squatter settlement that sits next to the heavily polluted Manila Bay - on.