Four children between the ages of 4 and 13 died in a house fire in Karasu-cho, Tsu, Mie Prefecture, the Mie prefectural police said on November 4, confirming the identities of the four bodies found in the burned house.
The fire broke out on October 2 and destroyed the single-story wooden house. According to the Tsu Minami police station, the four were Ferreira Bela Maria, 4, daughter of Uryu Marcelo, a 38-year-old company employee of Brazilian nationality who lived in the house, and the three children of a 43-year-old woman acquaintance: second son Sakasegawa Ryuya, 13, third son Ryui, 12, and eldest daughter Riyuna, 10.
Judicial autopsies found that all four died of burns. Uryu and the woman were out of the house when the fire started, and the station believes the children were unable to escape in time. Investigators are still working to establish the cause of the fire.
A call from the house during the fire carried a child's voice and the words "Mama's burning," the Asahi Shimbun reported. Family members and acquaintances mourned the four, describing the loss as sudden.
Aging housing and fire risk
The house was a single-story wooden structure, a common form of older housing in Japan. Such homes often lack the fire-resistant materials and smoke alarms required in newer buildings, and fires that start inside them can spread before residents have time to get out.