NEW YORK — Two teenage girls died after being trapped in a fast-moving fire in a Bronx apartment building they both were just visiting, leaving their families shattered, the Daily News has learned.

Nakayla Moreno, 19, was staying with her boyfriend when a five-alarm fire ripped through the Belmont building about 1:30 p.m. April 21, while Michelle Gonzalez, 17, was visiting a friend who lives there, according to their families.

Nakayla’s family spent a week in agonizing uncertainty because her body, found in the stairwell of the five-story building on East 187th Street near Belmont Avenue, was burned so badly it could not be recognized.

The remains were eventually identified as Nakayla’s through dental records, her family said.

“We had to wait to obtain the dental records from the last place she had dental work done. And finally, yesterday, it was confirmed that the body that they had was indeed Nakayla’s,” her aunt Tiara Sessoms said Wednesday.

“The family is distraught. They are broken. They’re wondering how could this happen.”

As the family plans for Nakayla’s funeral, her mother has not seen her body.

“I don’t know how bad the damage was but I know they’re not going to let her see the body,” the aunt said. “That’s an image they don’t want in the mother’s mind.”

Nakayla left her family’s home in Ravenswood, Queens, the day before the fire to visit her boyfriend and her family at first didn’t think much of it when she stopped responding to texts.

Once worry started to set in, nobody in Nakayla’s family had the boyfriend’s phone number, who they hadn’t met in person, so her mother decided to visit his Bronx address.

She saw the block was barricaded and discovered his building had been destroyed.

“She was screaming, asking for information and no one could provide anything,” the aunt said. “Nakayla’s boyfriend heard her screams and asked if she is his girlfriend’s mom and then proceeded to hug her.”

The boyfriend told Nakayla’s mom he woke Nakayla up after the blaze broke out on the first floor. He was trying to break a window in his fourth-floor apartment for them to escape when he looked back and she was nowhere to be found.

Sessoms had recently met her niece for dinner. Nakayla loved to cook and they would often discuss career options in the culinary field.

“I literally hugged my niece for the last time two weeks ago and I’m hurt,” Sessoms said.

“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had goals. She had things she wanted to do. She was a free spirit. She just wanted to live and enjoy her life.”

The fire’s other victim who died had gone to the building to visit a boy whom her family believes was among the first people seen escaping the fire after it broke out.

“I hope that maybe he tried” to save her, said Michelle’s sister-in-law, Eslin Silva. “We presume that she tried to find her own way out and lost her life trying to do so.”

Like Nakayla, Michelle was found dead in a stairwell by first responders.

FDNY officials say the door of the ground-floor apartment where the fire started and the building’s front door were left open, feeding the fire oxygen and allowing it to rapidly spread to upper floors.

Silva had just spoken to the victim just four days before the fire.

“We’re still taking it in,” said Silva, who lives three blocks from the fire scene. “Her mom is obviously devastated. She’s really broken.”

The youngest of four siblings, Michelle was set to graduate school next year. She had recently passed her online learner’s permit test for driving.

“She was really excited,” Silva said. “She was going to get her driving license. She wanted to go to the DMV. She was going to start taking driving classes. She was excited to do those things.”

Both Michelle and Nakayla’s families have launched GoFundMes to help cover funeral expenses.

Both victims might have made it out alive if their neighbors had closed their doors to prevent the fire from spreading, FDNY officials said. Eleven people, including five firefighters, were hurt but survived.

Nakayla’s family hope authorities to investigate if the building had fire alarms and sprinklers and if they were in working order. Her aunt plans to pressure the City Council to pass measures to increase building safety.

“I’m not stopping until I get justice for my niece,” Sessoms said. “This will not end here. This will not end with the funeral.”

“We have two teenagers who died,” she added. “If that does not scream that we need to bring awareness to building safety here in New York, I don’t know what will.”

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