At least 10 dead, including 5 children, in a horrific building fire near Lyon | miscellaneous facts

“I heard people shouting, ‘Help, help, help, help us’,” Asad Belal, a young man who lived in the neighborhood when the fire broke out, told AFP. “There were people on the ground, others were stuck on balconies and firefighters were finding it difficult to intervene because of the trees”. “My friends told me they managed to catch a ten-year-old boy”: his mother, taking refuge on a balcony on the third or fourth floor, “threw him to save him”, she explained. Said that he himself had not seen this scene. “We all know each other, it’s really unfortunate, I’m at a loss for words,” he said.

“The balance sheet is unfortunately final: 10 people, including 5 children aged 3 to 15, are said to have died, and four people were seriously injured, the causes of which are unknown. The investigation has been able to determine their Will be”, declared Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Friday morning. “It is a blow, the consequences are extremely serious (..) I spoke with the President of the Republic”, he said in Paris, before leaving for the venue where he arrived at around 10:20 (continued below).

About 170 firefighters and 65 vehicles were mobilized to the blaze shortly after 3 a.m. at the seven-story building located in a block of buildings in the Mas du Toureau district, according to the prefecture. The intervention took place “under difficult circumstances”, according to Mr Darmanin. According to firefighters, the flames started spreading from the ground floor upwards, trapping some residents in their homes, while smoke spread to common areas.

“It was horrific,” Mohammed, the cousin of a fourth-floor man who managed to escape down the stairs with his two children, told AFP. According to a press release from the Lyon Academy’s rector, Olivier Dagrippe (continued below), two listening rooms were deployed at the Jean Valer school and the Simone Lagrange college, the two schools whose students were victims of the fire.

A search is underway to determine the cause of the fire, according to a spokesman for the prefecture on site. The mayor of Vaux-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, “often pointed out the buildings in her town, and especially those in the Mas du Tourreau district, that present a risk in terms of security”, in a press dept LR Alexandre Vincentet Outlined release. , “This tragedy should encourage us to be more reactive with regard to safety in mass housing”, he said, urging local elected officials to introduce fire risk diagnostics on all housing reported. The Lyon public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation to determine the cause of this “dramatic” fire and seized the judicial police, of which the number of victims has been established. “No hypotheses have been ruled out, specifically criminal tracks”, specifies its press release.

According to the prefecture, two firefighters were slightly injured during the intervention. AFP noted at the scene that a large gendarmerie system was also deployed on the ground.

Long a symbol of a neighborhood under stress in the Lyon suburbs, the Mas du Toureau district is under fire for complete urban renewal. In the early 2000s, the metropolis began a 100-million-euro program to redevelop the area to become an eco-district and develop local shops and public transport.

According to the prefecture, Olivier Klein, ministerial representative for cities and housing, should join officials on site in the morning. The press, kept away from the site of the intervention, were set up in the newly inaugurated media library awaiting the press briefing. Reactions of solidarity for the victims and their families began pouring in on social networks.