'Fire, fire': woman's desperate call to husband as flames engulfed house

One of the women who died in a "terrible" house fire in south-east London made a desperate phone call to her husband while flames engulfed the house, a relative has said.

The woman’s shouts of "fire, fire" through the phone prompted her husband to run to the blazing house in Bexleyheath on Thursday evening, according to the husband’s cousin, who gave his name only as Jega.

"He said he got a call from his wife and she was just shouting and then the call ended," Jega said. "It went silent.

"She was shouting 'fire fire'."

He added: "It is so sad. It is impossible to comfort him or to describe what he is going through."

Around 40 London Fire Brigade firefighters in six engines and officers from the Metropolitan Police rushed to the semi-detached terrace on Hamilton Road in Bexleyheath at around 8.30pm.

Two women and an infant boy and girl, all believed to be related, were pronounced dead at the scene.

The cousin described the youngsters who died in the fire as "happy children" and added that "it looks like an accident and you can’t prepare for that."