Twin daughters, parents, grandmother perish in Bangkok fire
Parents and their one-year-old twin daughters and the girls’ grand mother were killed when a fire engulfed their shop house in Bangkok’s Bueng Koom district early Wednesday.
Police said the fire started at 3:45 am at the three-storey Lim Thongchai Charoen Yont shop house on Soi Navamin 99 off Navamin road.
Ten fire engines took about an hour to control the blaze. Fire fighters later found the charred bodies of the five victims on the second floor.
They were identified as Chamras Thongchaiwattana-ampol, 35, his wife, Sarinthip Sutthipongchaikul, 34, his two twin daughters – Saranya and Saranda – and his mother, Pattara Thongchaiwattana-ampol, 68.
Chamras’s sister, Ratana Thongchaiwattana-ampol, 36, told police that he heard an explosion sound and she led her father, grandfather, sister and her child to run out of the house in time.
She said her brother and his family were living on the third floor. She tried to contact them on mobile phone but signal later disappeared.
Police said the fire apparently started from the second floor and quickly engulfed the entire building. Chamras and his family might succumb to smoke inhaling when they went down to the second floor to try to escape the blaze, police said.