Friends, family beg for answers to fatal fire
'The next life will be better. You will never have to go through this again,' mother-in-law sobs
Kelly Roesler and Meagan Fitzpatrick, with files from Paula McCooey
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, April 07, 2005
CREDIT: Jean Levac, The Ottawa Citizen
Muong Meas, left, comforts Bunra Keth, the mother-in-law of Lilly Svay, one of five family members killed in Tuesday's deadly house fire. Friends and relatives have set up a shrine outside the Somerset Street building that housed the family's store and their apartment above.
A day after a fire ripped through the Mekong Grocery store in Chinatown, taking the lives of five family members living in an apartment above, friends and relatives were frantically looking for answers as to how the tragedy happened.
"Why did you take them? They were a nice family! Why did you die so suddenly?" cried Bunra Keth, mother-in-law of Lilly Svay, one of the deceased.
Ms. Keth, whose son, Bunny Svay, was injured in the fire, dropped to her knees in front of a makeshift shrine to the family located near the charred remains of the store, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
"The next life will be a better one than this, and you will never have to go through all this again," she said.
Many members of Ottawa's Cambodian community lined up bearing gifts for the Somerset Street shrine yesterday, to pay tribute to Ms. Svay, 23, her mother, Coli Yan Thach, and brothers Gary, 14, Danny, 13, and Sunny, 12, who died of smoke inhalation during the Tuesday morning fire.
Three other family members were injured in the fire: Mr. Svay, 25, Mrs. Thach's husband, Makara, 55, and the Svays' 14-month-old son, Sipheng. The three are in the hospital in critical condition.
The Thach family owned the popular Mekong Grocery store at 816 Somerset St. and were well respected business people within Ottawa's Cambodian community. Yesterday, mourners laid flowers, fresh fruit, incense, candles and other offerings in a shrine across the street from the grocery store, where framed pictures of the five deceased family members rest against a brick wall.
Laying a shrine of food and flowers is an important ritual for members of the Buddhist religion, said Rath Yong, president of the Cambodian Association of Ottawa.
"We're sending their spirit to heaven with God," he said. "When you burn incense, it's like you're talking with the spirit. It's a way of communicating. You say to them, 'Don't worry. It's now over. Go to heaven and be with God, at peace."
Rivaux Lay, a spokesman for the Thach family, said the surviving relatives are still dealing with their loss. Buddhist prayer ceremonies, to be held over the next two days, will be a vital part of helping them to get over their tragic loss, he said.
"We need to pray," said Mr. Lay. "It's like grief counselling. Some are in shock, and some just cannot bear it."
The loss of the family comes as a shock to the community that knew them as friends thanks to their popular shop.
"The store was more than a general store, it was a place where people connected," said Jack McCarthy, executive director of the Somerset West Community Centre.
"It's a devastating loss for the community. They're just reeling. It's hard not to break down as you walk by the shrine. It's a feeling of deep, deep shock and loss."
Revy Chey was still trying to grasp the magnitude of Tuesday's tragedy as he waited to visit fire survivor, and family patriarch, Makara Thach, in the the intensive care unit of the Ottawa Hospital's General campus yesterday.
Mr. Chey is a longtime friend of Mr. Thach and tried to help the man save his family on Tuesday morning. On that day, Mr. Thach ran out of the burning building shortly before 2 a.m. with his infant grandson in his arms. He passed the baby off to a stranger, then banged on Mr. Chey's ground floor window screaming for help. Mr. Thach then ran back into the burning building. Mr. Chey tried to follow, but intense heat and dense smoke prevented him from entering.
Mr. Chey was faced with an equally heart wrenching situation yesterday when he found himself standing face-to-face with Mr. Thach, who has not yet been told about the fate of his family.
Mr. Thach was asking about his wife and children, wanting to know if they survived the fire, but Mr. Chey could not bring himself to tell his friend of their tragic fate. Instead, Mr. Chey simply told the injured man not to worry. "'Take care of yourself so you can go home."
"He looks a lot better today," Mr. Chey said. "I'm happy."
A few doors down from Mr. Thach's room lay his son-in-law, Bunny Svay, also recovering from serious injuries. Mr. Chey didn't visit with Mr. Svay yesterday but saw him from outside his room and said he was resting with his eyes closed.
At a press conference yesterday, Ottawa fire officials did not rule out the possibility that a power outage from an earlier fire on Somerset Street late Monday night may have sparked the fatal fire a few hours later.
Shortly after 11:18 p.m. Monday, fire fighters responded to a fire at 876 Somerset St. not far from the Thach family's apartment. No one was injured during that blaze.
But the heat from the fire forced Ottawa Hydro to shut off power to the grid for that neighbourhood around midnight. A few hours later fire officials were called to the second blaze at 816 Somerset St., where members of the Thach family died.
