The fire in a building near Lyon in central-eastern France killed ten people, including five children, and injured fourteen, including four in serious condition, overnight from Thursday to Friday, the prefecture said. .
The fire, whose “origin is unknown”, is “now extinguished”, specifies the prefecture in a press release.
He declared himself shortly after 3 a.m. (2 a.m. GMT) in a 7-storey building in the town of Vaulx-en-Velin. The flames started from the ground floor to spread upstairs.
The disaster mobilized nearly 170 firefighters and two of them were slightly injured during the intervention, according to the prefecture.
An investigation will have to determine the causes of this fire, declared the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin.
“It’s a shock, the results are extremely serious (..) I spoke with the President of the Republic” Emmanuel Macron, he said, before leaving Paris to go there.
A large security perimeter has been deployed in the city located in a district undergoing urban renewal and relief is busy on the spot in a ballet of ambulances, trucks and flashing lights, according to an AFP photographer.
The flames started from the ground floor to spread upstairs. Findings are underway to determine the causes of the fire, according to a spokesperson for the prefecture on site.
Eco-neighborhood
The fire broke out shortly after 3 a.m. in a seven-storey building located in a block of buildings and mobilized nearly 170 firefighters, according to the same source.
Two firefighters were slightly injured during the intervention, according to the prefecture. A large gendarmerie system has been deployed on the ground, AFP noted on the spot.
The fire occurred in the Mas du Taureau district, in full urban renewal after having long been the symbol of neighborhoods under tension in the Lyon suburbs. The metropolis launched in the early 2000s a program of 100 million euros to rethink what was to become an eco-district, develop local shops, develop public transport.
Olivier Klein, the Minister Delegate for the City and Housing, must join the authorities on site in the morning to take stock of the situation, according to the prefecture.
The press, kept away from the place of intervention and installed in the newly inaugurated media library, awaiting a press briefing.