Ten people died, including five minors, and 19 were injured in the violent iA building burned down this Friday morning in the city of Vaulx-en-Velin, in eastern France, authorities reported.
“I heard cries of ‘Help! Help! Help! Help us!'” Assed Belal, a young man from the neighborhood who was present during the fire, told AFP.
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Some of the occupants trapped by the flames jumped into the void, according to information collected by AFP.
“There were people on the ground, others blocked on the balconies and the firemen had problems to intervene because of the trees,” he added.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin indicated that “ten people died, including five children between the ages of 3 and 15, (…) in a fire whose causes are unknown.”
Another 19 people were injured, four of them seriously, according to authorities and first responders. Two firefighters were slightly injured.
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The Lyon prosecutor’s office, a city near Vaulx-en-Velin, opened an investigation to determine the causes of the “dramatic” fire, without ruling out “the criminal track” for the moment, it said in a statement.
The fire, which is already “extinguished”, was declared shortly after 3:00 in the morning in a seven-story building, where almost 170 firefighters attended, according to the local prefecture.
The fire started on the ground floor and spread to the upper levels, trapping residents in their homes while smoke filled common areas, according to firefighters. “It was terrible,” Mohamed, a cousin of a fourth-floor inhabitant who managed to flee down the stairs with his two children, told AFP.
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Union and solidarity after the tragedy
Expressions of solidarity with the victims and their families began to appear on social networks, on the last day of school in France before the Christmas and New Year holidays.
“Sadness at the tragic fire that affected Vaulx-en-Velin. I express my support to the victims and their relatives,” French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne tweeted.
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The educational authorities set up two psychological support units at the Jean-Vilar school and at the Simone-Lagrange secondary school, where some of the victims studied.
The fire broke out in the Mas du Taureau neighborhood, an area undergoing urban transformation after long embodying the image of Lyon’s troubled suburbs.
This is one of the deadliest fires recorded in France in recent years. In 2005, 24 people died in a fire in a building used by families of African origin in Paris. A woman was jailed for starting it by throwing clothes over the sails during an argument.
AFP
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