WASHINGTON, Dec 6: A Pakistani man and his wife will bury their five children in Alvin, Texas, on Tuesday following a tragedy that has saddened the entire town.

A midday blaze on Dec 2 deprived Salim Charania and his wife of all their children. The fire in the second-floor of their apartment killed Zain (4), Zohaib (3), Shafna (2), and 2-month-old twins Aman, a boy, and Cyra, a girl.

“The tragedy is so enormous that it has shocked everyone. The entire town shares the grief of this family,” says a family friend Kasi McCarty.

Condolence messages have been arriving from across the US, particularly from the Pakistani community.

“No words are strong enough to express the magnitude of this tragedy. Our hearts go out to Mr Charania and his family,” said Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.

“We pray to God Almighty to give them the strength to bear this loss. The entire community is praying for them,” said the ambassador.

The embassy will send a representative to the burial while all major Pakistani organizations plan to send their representatives as well.

“The entire family is in shock. The parents are still unable to talk about the tragedy. Mr Charania’s two sisters, who also live in the United States, are helping them,” said Pakistan’s deputy chief of mission Mohammed Sadiq who has stayed in touch with the family.

Early investigations show that the fire was apparently caused by an electrical malfunction. Residents say such malfunctions had happened before too and they had notified the management but it failed to remove the fault.

Apartment manager Carla Hernandez said she had encouraged residents of the complex to document instances of maintenance problems, including recent reports of electrical malfunctions at the $600-a-month units.

The Charanias had moved to this apartment last month from another residential complex in Alvin.

Mr Charania, a convenience store worker, was at home when the fire started. He pushed his wife to safety but was unable to rescue children who perished in the fire that swept through his apartment.

The apartment manager said she was talking to a neighbour when she heard a noise and went outside to see an already badly burned Mr Charania.

She said Mr Charania went back inside, pushed his wife from a second-floor window, emerged again — and then returned to the burning apartment a third time to search for the children.

“He couldn’t find any of the kids,” Ms Hernandez said.

Mr Charania was later admitted to the Memorial Hermann Hospital in nearby Houston in a critical condition. Authorities said his wife was hospitalised with an apparent back injury. Fire fighters recovered the bodies of the five children.

Kasi McCarty said to support his family Mr Charania worked long hours at a convenience store near Alvin, 25 miles south of Houston.