Lyon apartment fire kills at least 10, including 5 children

• At least 10 people, including five children, have died in a fire.
• Four people remain in serious condition and 10 others with minor injuries.
• French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne described the occurrence as “tragic”.

A fire that started at an eight-story apartment complex in a Lyon, France suburb early on Friday morning claimed the lives of at least 10 individuals, five of them were children.

According to a statement from the regional Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes authority, the Vaulx-en-Velin fire left four persons in serious condition and 10 others with minor injuries, including two firefighters.

The slain children were between the ages of 3 and 15, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Later, the fire was extinguished.

“It’s obviously a shock, the death toll is extremely serious,” Darmanin told journalists.

Elisabeth Borne, the prime minister of France, described the occurrence as “tragic” and extended her support and sympathies to the victims’ families.

100 meters (328 feet) away from the building, Sarem, a local resident, told Media that at around 2:25 a.m., he heard children shouting from a fourth-story balcony, and that a group of locals used a ladder to eject 25 people from the second level.

The flames “weren’t violent,” he said, but there was a lot of smoke and “the people who were crying for help couldn’t breathe.”

According to the regional administration, around 170 firefighters and 65 fire engines were dispatched to the area.

According to the authorities, emergency services were called at 3:12 a.m. local time on Friday and arrived at the scene 13 minutes later.

Major Geoffrey Casu, a spokesman for the National Federation of Firefighters, told French network LCI on Friday that the fire started on the building’s ground floor. As a result of smoke blocking internal escape routes, Casu said that only the building’s outside could be reached during an evacuation, complicating rescue efforts.

According to Media, the inferno continued to spread until it covered the top three levels of the structure. It was lit at six in the morning.

Another tenant named Rida, who lives right in front of the apartment complex, told Media that at around three in the morning, the commotion woke him and his child up. Firefighters had already arrived at the area, and police had stopped the road. He reported hearing a man yell, “My children, my children, save my children.”

Local prosecutors said in a statement that an investigation has been begun to ascertain precisely what started the incident. The source of the fire is still being looked into. Nothing has been excluded, not even “criminal intent,” according to the statement.

Experts in forensics and fire science as well as technical teams from the judicial police are there. Associations that support victims have also been activated, according to the statement.

According to the regional authorities, Pascal Mailhos, the prefect of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region, Hélène Geoffrey, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Valin, and Nicolas Jacquet, a public prosecutor, went to the scene of the incident. Later on Friday, Darmanin and Olivier Klein, the French minister of housing, went to the area and spoke with the first responders.

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