Hyderabad: Three siblings from Hyderabad were among four people killed in a horrific fire during Christmas celebrations at their host’s house in the US state of Tennessee.
“The Coudriet family was hosting, housing, and celebrating Christmas with three teenagers attending an academy here in the States. The Naik famly are missionaries in India that our church supports,” Coudriets’ church, Collierville Bible Church, said.
“We got to know about the fire accident on Monday. The family took a flight on the same night and reached Collierville on Wednesday morning,” Mr Sridhar Naik said.
When Pastor Naik left, he was only told that the children were in the ICU.
In a message, Mr Naik posted, “My children who are in the US for studies were on Christmas vacation, staying with a friend’s family. The house caught fire. Please uphold us in your prayers.”
The academy said it was “deeply saddened by the tragic event” in Collierville. “We are fervently praying for the families involved,” it added.
A local newspaper quoted Mr Keith Potts, who has known the Coudriet family for about four years, said, as the students could not go home, the Coudriets had invited them to stay in their home. Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner said the tragedy is still under investigation. “They’re still looking at what the cause of it (fire) was,” he said. “I was told when they arrived they did not hear any smoke alarms going off so you just never know.”
Collierville Fire Chief Mark King said the first floor of the house had no working smoke detectors. The second floor, which is where all four rooms were, only had one smoke detector that went off.
As he tried to assist before fire trucks arrived, Symons saw two people make it out: 13-year-old Cole - who jumped out of a window and his father, Danny. “He was covered head to toe in black,” Symons was quoted by the website as saying.
