OTTAWA: Seven Pakistanis including four young children were killed Friday night when a fire ripped through a home in Chestermere, Alberta, in Canada. Seven members of two related families from Karachi died in the blaze. Amjad Kamal, Rafia Rashid, a 35-year-old woman and four children were among the dead.

The cause of the fire, which ranks among the deadliest in Canada in recent years, was not immediately known. The fire happened at 2:30 a.m. on Friday when neighbours heard a "loud bang" at a home in the 300 block of Oakmere Close in Chestermere, about 14 kilometres east of Calgary.

Those killed were identified as a man and a woman in their late 30s, a 35-year-old woman, a boy and a girl aged 12, an 8-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old boy. The five people who survived the fire were assessed by paramedics, and the four children were taken to the hospital as a precaution.