17 Africans die, many injured in Paris inferno
PARIS, Friday (AFP) Seventeen people including many children died and
about 30 were injured early Friday when a blaze ripped through a
dilapidated apartment building in Paris occupied by African families,
the fire service said.
In a provisional toll released at 5:00 am (0300 GMT), it said at
least 17 died in the inferno which swept up the stairwell of the
building in the 13th district of the French capital.
The origin of one of the worst blazes in post-war Paris was not
known, but a criminal investigation was under way.
The fire was a reminder of a blaze on April 15 this year in the
central Opera district in which 24 people, also immigrants, perished in
a hotel.
Police said 130 people, including 100 children, from Mali, Senegal,
Ivory Coast and Gambia were staying in the seven-storey 1920s building
on the corner of Boulevard Vincent-Auriol and the rue Edmond-Flamand.
The families had been sent to the building, the top floor of which
was bricked up, by charity organizations. It was run by the private
group France Europe Habitat, the police said. Witnesses said the
building was in very poor condition. "There were rats and mice inside,"
said one resident, while a neighbour told AFP that "the wooden
staircases of the building shook."
The alarm was raised at 12:17 am (2217 GMT Thursday) after the
stairwell caught fire from the third to the sixth storeys, sparking
panic among the residents, fire brigade Captain Jacques Dauvergne and
witnesses said.
Mohammed Sisse, who arrived on the scene at 1:30 am, said he saw
flames sweeping the building between the third and fifth storeys.
"I came to get news of my cousins, a couple and two children who
lived on the fourth floor," he told AFP. "We haven't seen them leave, we
are very worried."
Building caretaker Oumar Cisse said there was panic when the blaze
broke out and "lots of people wanted to jump out of the windows,
children were crying."
"My door was totally burnt, my son threw water then we were saved by
the firemen. Neighbours lost children," he said, apparently in shock.
About 210 firemen with 50 fire engines were mobilized to fight the
inferno, which was extinguished after nearly three hours.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy went to the scene and Paris Town
Hall said Mayor Bertrand Delanoe was on his way back from the
southwestern town of La Rochelle. |