Relatives are gathered near the fire that killed 13 people, including 7 children, on January 5, 2021, in a central Philadelphia neighborhood (AFP / Ed JONES)
Jacuita Purifoy has lost three sisters and seven nephews and nieces: the fire that affected a small social housing building at dawn on Wednesday left a neighborhood in central Philadelphia in shock, with a heavy death toll of 12, including eight children.
“I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say (…) My sisters, my nephews and my nieces are gone, they will never come back”, sighs, upset, Jacuita, 37, who has found the one of her other sisters, Qaadira, draped in a red and white Salvation Army blanket.
Relatives of the victims are gathered in front of a school, very close to the three-story brick building, typical of some American cities, where the flames did not give the thirteen missing a chance. The tragedy took place in the central and residential neighborhood of Fairmont, near the major museums of Philadelphia.
After an initial assessment of 13 victims, the town hall announced in the evening that twelve people, four adults and eight children, had died.
“They mattered to us. They were meant to go on living and dying when they were old, and not something that could have been avoided. If only…” Jacuita continues, short hair dyed orange, eyebrow piercings and on the tongue. She consoles her sister, in tears.
The ten loved ones she has lost are between the ages of 1 and 33. But she is also worried about another child in the family, 5, who has been hospitalized. “He doesn’t know what’s going on. He wants his mother, his father, his sisters, his cousins, all those with whom he has lived for five years and whom he does not know are dead,” adds Jacuita.
– “Intense fire” –
The flame-blackened facade of the building where a fire took place that killed 13 people, including seven children, in a central Philadelphia neighborhood on January 5, 2021 (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Hannah Beier)
“This is without a doubt one of the most tragic days in our city’s history,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. A firefighter, Craig Murphy, spoke of a “terrible toll”, referring to “one of the worst fires” for him in 35 years of practice.
Firefighters arrived at the scene at 6:40 am (11:40 GMT) and had to deal with “an intense fire originating from the second floor of a house” which has three. “It took 50 minutes to bring the fire under control,” they said.
The building, owned by the city, is affiliated with federal social housing.
“According to my parishioners, the people who live there are rather people who need help,” the priest of a nearby Ukrainian Catholic church, Ruslan Borovyi, told AFP. “It’s a great tragedy, we are going to have a prayer tonight and we are going to see how we can help them,” he added.
– Investigation –
The building sits in the middle of a row of small houses, along a block with brick facades. Several windows are completely blackened there, as well as part of the roof.
Location of the deadly fire on Wednesday in a building in Philadelphia, United States (AFP /)
Firefighters have announced the opening of an investigation to determine how the fire started, why it spread so quickly and what the emergency exits were. According to Craig Murphy, “there were four smoke detectors but none worked.” He added that a “very large number of people” were living in just two homes, assuring that eight people had managed to escape the flames and two others had been hospitalized.
“We cannot pass judgment on the number of people who lived in this building,” added the mayor, suggesting that, “perhaps, there were members of these families who needed to be there. shelter”.
Firefighters at the scene of the fire that killed thirteen, including seven children, in a small building in Philadelphia, in the eastern United States (AFP / Ed JONES)
For its part, the Philadelphia housing agency assured that the building had been inspected in May 2021 and that at the time, all the detectors were working.
The death toll is one of the deadliest for Philadelphia, a large city in Pennsylvania and the sixth most populous in the United States (approximately 1.5 million inhabitants). In 2008, seven immigrants died after the explosion of a kerosene heater in a small brick building.
In December 2017, a fire in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City killed 12 people including four children, the worst in 25 years in the city. It had been provoked by a three-and-a-half-year-old child playing with a gas stove.
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