A violent fire in a building in Vaulx-en-Velin, in the north-eastern suburbs of Lyon, killed ten people including five children and injured fourteen, including “four in absolute emergency”, on the night of Thursday to Friday, a announced the Rhône prefecture. “The assessment is unfortunately final: 10 people died, including 5 children between 3 and 15 years old, in a fire whose causes are not known. The investigation will be able to determine them”, 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”, he said, before leaving the prefecture of Paris to go there.
A fire of “unknown origin”
The disaster, whose “origin is unknown” is “now extinct”, according to the press release from the prefecture. 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.
170 firefighters mobilized
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.