Nine members of a family died after their house caught fire in Tarhairi village of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Abbottabad district during the early hours of Sunday.

Rescue 1122 Emergency Officer Hafeezur Rehman confirmed the number of casualties to Dawn.com. He said the deceased included a woman, her four sons and four daughters.

He said the incident took place in the limits of the Mangal police station.

The house, which was made out of wood, caught fire after a short circuit and then collapsed, the official said. He said the bodies were trapped under the rubble for hours before they were retrieved by rescue teams.

Rehman added that the head of the family, Zakir Abbasi, was in Karachi when the incident took place.

The official further said that it was not possible to identify the bodies and mass graves were prepared for their burial.