EDMONTON - Ignoring the snow, Eva Janette Caperina left Edmonton on Saturday morning for a short drive with three friends.

Heading south on Highway 21 toward Kingman, a hamlet near Camrose where she had worked as a nanny for two years, the group planned to return by early afternoon.

“Their housemates told them not to go because of the weather, but they insisted,” a grieving Hilda Doniego said Monday.

A few hours later, all four died when the Saturn Ion in which they were riding slid on an icy stretch of road and into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer.

The accident southeast of Beaumont is the second to claim the lives of four temporary foreign workers who came to Alberta from the Philippines in two years.

“This is very, very tragic,” Esmerelda Agbulos, the honorary consul for the Philippines in Edmonton, said Monday before undertaking the sad task of planning a group funeral. As in 2012, all four victims will be eulogized together. “It was only two years ago, and already it has happened again.”

A mother with teenagers back home, Caperina lost her husband two years ago in a motorcycle accident in the Philippines. Before moving to Edmonton, Caperina had worked for eight years in Taiwan, her cousin, Doniego, said.

“She wanted to try her luck in Canada,” Doniego said. “She thought maybe there were better opportunities.”

Notified of the accident by the RCMP on Saturday evening, Doniego called Caperina’s family to break the news and contacted her employer on Sunday. The RCMP is still trying to reach the other victims’ next of kin half the world away, and as such their names have yet to be released.

Like Caperina, one of the victims is a nanny. The other two, men in their 30s, were cooks at a Fatburger franchise in Mill Woods. The fast-food restaurant has been closed since Sunday as shocked employees come to terms with the deaths.

“I’ve been one of the people dealing with this all weekend,” Steve Smith, director of operations for Fatburger Canada, said from Vancouver. “It’s very disturbing, and all the people that are in that restaurant, they’re just very, very upset.”

Smith said he knew both men because he frequently travels to each Fatburger location. He is unsure when the restaurant will reopen.

“We’re all trying to deal with a tragic event,” he said.

When the four victims had not returned by midday Saturday, their housemates became increasingly concerned, Doniego said. The two men were scheduled to work a shift at Fatburger beginning at 1 p.m.

“They texted me and told me they couldn’t get hold of Eva or anybody else,” Doniego said. “They kept calling their cellphones but nobody ever answered.”

Agbulos said plans are being made to stage a fundraising event for the victims’ families. A bank account will likely be opened in all of their names in the next few days.

“There are going to be a lot of expenses,” Agbulos said. “I don’t think these people had a lot of money.”

Doniego said Caperina was 41. The two grew up only a few houses from one another in the Philippines.

“She was a very kind lady,” Doniego said. “If you asked, she would do anything to help you.”

Caperina’s Facebook account overflows with photos of her children. On June 16, next to a photograph where she is smiling, she posted a comment about life — and death.

“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth — and that we have no way of knowing when our time will come — that we begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”

mklinkenberg@edmontonjournal.com

Twitter.com/martykej

oellwand@edmontonjournal.com

Twitter.com/otiena