SURVIVOR: A hotel worker tells of her ordeal

Police laid out dozens of bodies on the street for people to identify

By CNN's Rufi Vigilar

MANILA, Philippines -- Manor Hotel employee May Olegario was one of 20 fire victims admitted to the East Avenue Medical Center some two kilometers from the site of the tragedy.

She recounted how all the lights went out "about two minutes" after she was woken up by her co-worker, who was screaming inside the fourth-floor quarters of the hotel in Quezon City, Manila.

"My companion had just gone to the toilet when she noticed smoke coming into the room," Olegario told CNN, in Tagalog.

"We tried to call the reception desk downstairs but no-one was answering," Olegario said. "We kept waiting and waiting and the phone just kept ringing and ringing."

Suddenly, the lights went out.

In their panic, Olegario said they went up to the fifth floor only to realize there was no place to flee.

By then, the smoke in the corridors and stairwell was thickening.

Olegario said they managed to break through the floorboards and plywood ceiling of the floor below and fell back to the fourth floor.

They then pushed through an air-conditioning vent and tried to cling on to the iron grills framing the hotel room windows.

Olegario's companion fell to the third floor but was able to hang onto some grills.

"My companion lost her grip because we could no longer breathe from the smoke," Olegario said.

"We were rescued by our fellow roomboys but I don't know how we got down because I passed out," she added.

"I was only looking for a job," said a teary-eyed Olegario, who had been working at the hotel for only two months.

Dr. Mary Grace Bartolome of the East Avenue hospital's emergency ward said her unit was full at the time of the accident, so three patients had to be sent to another hospital.

Four patients have so far died at the hospital.