A woman who died after the house she was in was engulfed in flames in southeast London shouted “fire, fire” in a desperate call to her husband, according to a relative.
Four people died – two women and two children – after a semi-detached terrace on Hamilton Road in Bexleyheath went up in flames on Thursday evening.
One of the victims, who is yet to be named, made a phone call to her husband alerting him to the blaze shortly before she died.
According to the husband's cousin, who gave his name only as Jega, the woman “was just shouting and then the call ended. It went silent. She was shouting 'fire, fire'.”
Around 40 London Fire Brigade (LFB) firefighters in six engines and officers from the Metropolitan Police also rushed to the scene.
Using ladders and breathing apparatus, crews managed to pull the adults and children from the property, but they were pronounced dead at the scene.
A man is in hospital with non-life threatening leg injuries, while another man who arrived at the scene was taken to hospital by London Ambulance Service (LAS) crews, the force said.
Jega added: “It is so sad. It is impossible to comfort him or to describe what he is going through.”
He described the youngsters who died as “happy children” and said “it looks like an accident and you can't prepare for that”, adding that the family were of Sri Lankan heritage.
Nearby resident Scott James, 44, said the house was “quickly engulfed in flames” on Thursday at around 8.30pm.
“The downstairs was on fire and then the whole house went up. It was engulfed in flames. There wasn't an explosion,” he told the PA news agency.
Mr James said he told other neighbours to stay back until firefighters arrived who “very quickly had ladders up to the windows” and pulled one woman out from the upper level.
Ling Han, 36, who who also lives nearby, said her family heard “screaming” coming from the house and later emergency services trying to save their lives with CPR.
“They tried really hard to do CPR. They never gave up. They tried to do CPR for the children,” she said.
“I was shocked. My body was shocked. I had no idea how I could help them.”
The cause of the fire is not thought to be suspicious and there have been no arrests, the Metropolitan Police said.
Additional reporting by PA
