Australia: Seven children among dead in house fire which killed 11

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

Perilous Times

Australia: Seven children among dead in house fire which killed 11

    * From: AAP
    * August 24, 2011 10:52AM


SEVEN children, the youngest just three, are among 11 people killed in a horrific house fire south of Brisbane, an uncle of a survivor says.

Heartbreaking scenes of grief are playing out at Kingston, south of Brisbane, where hundreds of Tongan and Samoan people are singing prayers for those lost.

Faiumu Tafeaga has told reporters that seven children, aged three to 17, are among the dead.

They include the two young children of his nephew Misi Matauaina, who leapt from the blazing second story believing they and his partner had escaped earlier.

After he fell to the ground he realised in horror that the three were still inside, and he could do nothing to save them.

Mr Tafeaga said there were two other survivors - a grandfather and another man he did not name.

He said the children were aged three, six, eight, 11, 14, 16 and 17. He said three couples were in the house when the fire erupted.


Family and neighbours say the other victims were four adults including an 18-year-old. Police have not confirmed those details.

It is the worst fire in Queensland since the Childers backpackers blaze in 2000 which killed 15.

Police have described the fire as a tragedy beyond all proportions, saying the victims were predominantly from two Pacific Islander families.

"Never in my service, never have I seen anything like this," Logan Police Superintendent Noel Powers told reporters.
"... it's a total and utter catastrophe, a tragedy beyond all proportions."

Neighbours have told AAP those inside stood little chance of escaping from the second storey of the fibro, tin-roofed home that now lies in ruins, it's top storey collapsed into a blackened shell.

From the back fence of Mark Griffin's home, directly behind the disaster scene, a charred bed can be seen through a gaping hole in the side of the house.

"I knew there were three generations of a family that lived there. I knew there were a lot of children," he told AAP.

He said he'd spoken a few times to a grandfather who lived in the house, who said he was a minister.

"The grandfather, who I believed owns the house ... he told me he was a minister and he owned a yam farm over Cleveland way," Mr Griffin said.

He said described the family as quiet and said they often enjoyed a pig on the spit together in their backyard.

The fire that's taken so many of their lives was utterly ferocious, Mr Griffin said, punctuated by one loud explosion and a series of smaller ones.

"The flames totally engulfed downstairs, and worked their way to the top," he said, adding those upstairs had little hope of escape.

Premier Anna Bligh has just arrived at the scene to offer her condolences.

Mourners, singing prayers on the street near the blackened house, have vowed to stay at the site until the last body is recovered.

Pastor Terry Walker said a lot of Samoan and Tongan people came to his church, so he was asked to go to the fire scene.

"Over the next couple of weeks I guess there will be a lot of helping out with food and doing what we can, clothing, what ever we can, because they are a big family," he told ABC Radio.

A Samoan parishioner, May, told the ABC the Tongan and Samoan communities would heal together.

"This is a black Wednesday, black morning to us, to everybody here," she said.

The fire broke out just after midnight and quickly took hold. It's not clear if the house was fitted with smoke alarms.

Experts are working to recovery the bodies, but police have warned formal identification could take some time.

Among the experts on the scene are some who helped in the aftermath of the Bali bombings.