Brooklyn house fire kills seven children, leaving two others severely injured (Photo : Twitter/@CP24)
Fire engulfed a Brooklyn home early Saturday, killing seven children and leaving two other from Sassoon family injured in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. The authorities believe that hot plate was left on a kitchen counter for Sabbath-which is believed to set off the fire that killed the children and the mother and another sibling severely injured.
ABC News reported on Sunday morning that both mother and daughter-Gayle Sassoon and her 14-year-old child Siporah Sassoon-are still in critical condition.
New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said that it was by far the largest tragedy the cit has had in seven years. "It's a tragedy for this family, it's a tragedy for this community, it's a tragedy for our city," he added.
Dov Hikind, Brooklyn Assemblyman, said that the remains of the children will be placed aboard an El Al flight to Tel Aviv following the funeral services on Sunday afternoon.
On the other hand, Hikind said that he calls the incident an absolute disaster rather than a tragedy.
The fire killed three girls and four boys ages 5-16-who are all members of a closely connected neighborhood of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Hikind said that everyone is still in utter shock with what had just happened in the neighborhood.
The hot plate-which was believed to be the cause of fire-was left on for Sabbath from sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday. Many devout Jews refuse to work in all forms during Sabbath, which includes turning on appliances; due to this belief, some leave them running instead.
In reference to CBS Local, the investigators said that the hot plate malfunctioned, setting off the blaze which set the stairs on fire initially, trapping the children in their bedrooms as they slept on the second floor.
According to the authorities, the father of the children was at a nearby conference at the time the incident occurred.
The neighbors of the Sassoon family remembered them as an "amazing family" and the children as "beautiful little children."
It was in 2007 when the last house fire occurred in the same residential area when eight children and an adult were killed in a fire that is believed to had come from a spark of an overheated space heater in a 100-year-old building in the Bronx where a number of African migrant families lived.
