One person was killed today when a fire broke out at the Burmese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, seriously damaging the building, officials said.

Kuala Lumpur's fire department said the person killed was believed to be an embassy official.

"I think the person is from the embassy. It's a worker from the embassy," said Mohamad Ali Ismail, a deputy fire department chief.

He said the department had received an alert in the early afternoon about the fire and that it had consumed most of the embassy building.

"Around 80 percent has been burned," he told AFP.

The fire was started in the ground floor lobby but officials were still investigating the cause, he said.