At least seven children were among 11 people presumed dead in one of Australia’s worst urban fire disasters, officials said Wednesday, describing it as an “unimaginable” tragedy.
The inferno, which razed a two-storey house near the city of Brisbane — reportedly home to two families from Tonga and Samoa — began around midnight, waking neighbours with loud explosions and screams. Three men escaped the blaze — one suffering severe burns — and were “traumatised beyond belief”, said police Superintendent Noel Powers. “Unfortunately we have got quite a number of people who appear to have died as a result of this fire… it’s a total and utter catastrophe, a tragedy beyond all proportions,” Powers told reporters.
One survivor, Jeremiah Lale, threw mattresses from an upper-level window of the house in Logan city and leapt, begging his wife and five children to follow. “He called them to come and he jumped down and waited,” said Samoan community spokesman Faimalotoa John Pale, who sat with a distraught Lale. “But they all ran into the one room together and, I think with the others, they all died in that room.” Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said at least seven of the 11 dead were younger than 18, including a three-year-old. Three generations of one family were reported to have perished.
Four bodies were accounted for in the ruins late Wednesday, with rescue workers facing the grim task of identifying some who died by dental records because they were so badly charred.
Seven children among 11 dead in Australia fire
