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Seventeen killed in Paris apartment block blaze

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 23:47 CDT

By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS (Reuters) - A fire tore through a six-storey Paris apartment block on Friday, killing 17 people -- some of them children -- and injuring around 30, French officials said.

They said the blaze broke out in the stairwell of the traditional Parisian apartment building just after midnight when most residents would have been sleeping. It was brought under control two hours later but the cause was not immediately known.

"I heard children cry, families scream," Oumar Cisse told journalists after he was evacuated from the building, which French radio reported housed immigrants from African countries such as Mali and Senegal.

"Some children were yelling for their mothers and fathers," said Cisse.

A little boy in pyjamas, who seemed to be of African origin, clutched a toy animal as he was led away from the building in southern Paris by emergency officials. A number of women and men, some carrying children in their arms, were also evacuated.

"Some children are among the dead," said a fire brigade spokesman at the scene, adding he did not know the exact figure.

Smoke could still be seen coming out of windows of the apartment block at around 4:30 a.m. (0230 GMT).

Police cordoned off the area, close to the river Seine and the Jardin des Plantes botanical garden. More than 200 firefighters and dozens of ambulance workers and police were at the scene.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy visited the site in the early hours.

Friday's fire occurred only four months after a blaze at a six-storey Paris hotel killed 24 people in April, half of them children.

The blaze at the hotel, which housed many immigrants, was one of the deadliest fires in the French capital for years.

Some people tried to save themselves by jumping from windows and others tried to save their children by throwing them from upper floors when the fire broke out in the middle of the night.

Police said later they had detained a young woman and that she had admitted accidentally causing the fire at the hotel, situated near the Galeries Lafayette luxury department store.

Anti-racism and pro-immigration groups have said the April tragedy highlighted the precarious living conditions of many immigrants in France.

Hundreds of immigrants in Paris live in run-down hotels or shabby buildings because of pressures on housing.

Source: REUTERS

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