House fire kills family of six in Ho Chi Minh City

Six family members, including a two-month-old child, died after a blaze engulfed a house in Vietnam’s southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City, the Police said on Tuesday.

The flames tore through the four-storey home in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

At 1.00 a.m., witnesses tried to alert the family yet struggled to reach those stuck inside or even called out to them through the fire.

The owner of the house, 54-year-old Luc Chan Tam, was outside at the time of the blaze and struggled to get back inside to save his family.

He was badly burnt.

According to local media reports, some 50 firefighters were sent to the house as efforts to free the family intensified.

When they eventually broke into the house, they found the bodies of family members crossing three generations, including Tam’s wife, their children, and grandchildren.

Local authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.

Col. Huynh Quang Tam, head of the HCMC Fire Prevention Police Department, said five motorbikes that were parked at the entrance of the house prevented the victims from escaping.

Fire-related deaths regularly appear in the news in Vietnam.

In early February, four people were killed in Hanoi after their rented house caught fire following a traditional joss paper burning ceremony.

In November 2016, 13 people died in a fire that began at a karaoke lounge in the Vietnamese capital.