COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A Chinese-Filipino businessman, his wife and two children were killed in a pre-dawn fire that struck a commercial district here yesterday.
Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane, city police chief, said the victims – Johnson Wee, 42, his wife Haydee, 35, and their children Kim Patricia, 8, and Enzo, 6 – all died of suffocation while trying to escape from the fire that hit a commercial building at the city proper where they resided and operated a booking office for various airline companies.
Dangane said their bodies were found near the entrance of the building.
“It appears they tried their best to escape but there was no way out,” he said.
Dangane, citing initial reports by fire investigators, said candles that the Wee family lit due to a blackout Tuesday night could have caused the blaze.
The incident came less than a month after an Air Force plane crashed into a community here, killing nine people and triggering a fire that gutted two houses. – John Unson