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9 dead in Memphis house fire

Veronica Trammell, left, is embraced outside a home where a fire killed multiple people, including children, in Memphis early Monday.

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Local news outlets report that the fire began 1:30am Monday.

The Memphis Fire Department called it the deadliest house fire in the city since the 1920s.

Ms Sweat said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

Officials say a house fire in south Memphis that resulted in the death of three adults and six children was caused by an electrical malfunction in an air conditioning unit’s power cord in the living room. Firefighters found a smoke detector at the scene, but due to the heavy damage it sustained, they are now unable to determine whether it worked, authorities said.

All four adults and three of the children were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other children died after being taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition.

Felecia Wallace, 34, told the AP that she has known the family since she was in elementary school.

A fund to help the family has been established at Regions Bank, under the name Toots Family Funds.

A house fire has killed nine people in Memphis, Tennessee, in the city’s worst such tragedy in an nearly century, say fire officials.

“In my 27 years with the Memphis Fire Department, I have never seen this amount of victims on one incident”, MFD spokesman Lt. Wayne Cooke told WMC.

It took them 15 minutes to extinguish the flames and remove the victims from the home.

Metal bars cover all the windows, and may have prevented the victims escaping, said officials.

“Just keep us in your prayers that he keeps fighting and that at least one of us survives and make it a little bit further”, she said.

Mary Whitmore, sister of one woman who died in the fire, cried as she stood on the sidewalk outside the house.

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Security tape stretches across the driveway of a home where an early morning fire killed multiple people Monday, Sept. 12, 2016, in Memphis, Tenn.

Nine people including five children have been confirmed dead in a horrific house fire in South Memphis Tenn