In the early hours of this morning, a fire tore through an apartment building in France, killing ten people, including five children.
The fire began in a ground-floor apartment in Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon, just after 3 a.m. local time and immediately moved upstairs.
Fourteen persons were hospitalised in critical condition after being injured in the fire. Two firemen sustained minor injuries.
The deceased children were between the ages of three and fifteen, according to French interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who called the news a “shock.”
Mr. Darmanin said that he remained up all night providing President Emmanuel Macron with updates on the situation and will visit the fire scene today.
In response to a question concerning the origin of the fire, he informed the French television network BFMTV that “several hypotheses” are feasible and an investigation is already ongoing.
A witness told the news station: ‘We heard screams, children screaming. When we opened the windows, we saw smoke coming out and suddenly we went downstairs.
‘Neighbors came with a ladder, we were still able to evacuate people who live on the first floor, on the garden side.’
Another said: ‘[I heard] a dad who cried my children, save my children help my children’
A total of 165 firefighters and 70 vehicles were sent to combat the blaze. It took four hours to extinguish the fire, the origin of which is presently unclear.
The fire-damaged structure comprises a total of seven floors, including a basement.
»Ten dead, including five children, after fire in an apartment block near Lyon «