EAST ST. LOUIS, Illinois, USA (AP) – Five children under the age of 10 who were left unsupervised by an adult in an apartment in southwestern Illinois have died in a fire, authorities said Friday.
Firefighters were called to the building in East St. Louis before 3 a.m. and reported the discovery of two dead children in a bedroom. The other three were unconscious on the kitchen floor, officials said, and two of them were pronounced dead when they were taken from the building, according to Deputy Fire Chief George McClellan.
The fifth child was taken to a hospital, where he later died. the ages of the minors ranged from 2 to 9 years old and they were all from the same family. Their names were not immediately released.
“It’s been a very hard blow for the guys,” McLellan said of his firefighters.
The children’s mother had left them at home to pick up another adult at work and when she returned she found the apartment on fire, McClellan said. She entered the building several times to try to save them.
The cause of the fire is investigated. Seven other families were displaced by the incident, officials said, but were not home when the flames broke out.
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