Eleven people were killed in eastern France on Wednesday when a fire tore through a holiday lodging being used by a group of adults with learning disabilities, officials said.
The fire at the timbered residence in the eastern town of Wintzenheim struck deep in the night while the guests were asleep, with many of those on the upper floor unable to react fast enough to save their lives.
The fire, which came at the height of the nation’s summer holiday season, is the deadliest in France since a blaze at a bar in the northern city of Rouen in 2016 killed 14 people.
“Those on the ground floor are all alive and upstairs five people managed to escape. The eleven others died,” regional deputy prosecutor Nathalie Kielwasser said at the scene.
The fire brigade said six bodies had been brought out and two of them had already been identified. Intensive efforts were ongoing to extract the other corpses.
“The difficulty lies in accessing the affected levels, since there is a lot of rubble, a lot of collapsed parts and the stability of the floor is very uncertain,” said Philippe Hauwiller, who was leading the fire brigade search operation.
The local fire service told AFP authorities were alerted about the blaze in Wintzenheim, just outside the city of Colmar in the eastern Alsace region, at around 6:30 am (0430 GMT).
“The fire was quickly brought under control despite the intensity of the flames,” the prefecture the Haut-Rhin region said in a statement.
It said 17 people were safely evacuated, with one person hospitalised and another treated for shock.
Those staying at the centre were part of a group of adults with learning difficulties, some of whom who had come to the picturesque and hilly region from the nearby city of Nancy for the holidays.
“In Wintzenheim, the flames ravaged a lodging which accommodated people with disabilities and their companions. In the face of this tragedy, my thoughts go out to the victims, to the injured and to their loved ones,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter, which is being rebranded as X.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who went to the scene, expressed her “sadness” over the “appalling” disaster.
– ‘Extremely shocked’ –
The secretary general of the Haut-Rhin prefecture in eastern France, Christophe Marot confirmed a total of 28 people had been inside at the time, with the 11 initially reported as unaccounted for.
“Unfortunately, there is little doubt: all these people were present in the lodging and could not get out,” he told reporters.
People on the ground floor were able to quickly leave the premises but not those upstairs, he said.
The missing and confirmed dead included 10 people with light learning difficulties and one supervisor, he said.
Marot said there was no indication over the cause of the blaze and added an investigation would be opened by regional prosecutors.
Kielwasser said the owner of the residence, who lived opposite, was being questioned by police.
“She is extremely shocked, she is the one who set off the alert and heard the victims calling for help,” she added.
Deputy mayor Daniel Leroy said the residents were “taken by surprise in deep sleep, everyone was asleep”.
The guesthouse “has been running for several years without problems,” he added.
The traditional semi-timbered building, built in the style of the Alsace region, was severely damaged by the fire, according to the firefighters.
The firefighters were dousing the scene of the disaster with the help of fire hoses, an AFP photographer said.
The roof was consumed by the flames and, on the first floor, the charred wooden framework was visible.
Other firefighters were clearing wreckage away from the scene of the disaster with smoke still rising up.
