French authorities say 10 people, including five children, died in a fire Friday in an apartment building outside the city of Lyon. The cause of the fire is being investigated.
The prefecture for the Rhone region said 14 people were injured in the fire in the town of Vaulx-en-Velin, four of them seriously. It said 170 firefighters were mobilised at the scene.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw several fire trucks and a security perimeter set up around the area.
Vaulx-en-Velin, a town of 43,000 inhabitants, is among the most impoverished areas in the Rhone region.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin called the deadly fire "a shock" and said that he would travel in the coming hours to the town, which is 470 kilometres southeast of Paris. Darmanin was travelling to Lyon on Friday to present the security plan for Sunday’s final between Argentina and France.
Darmanin will be accompanied on his visit by Housing Minister Olivier Klein.
It’s the deadliest fire in France since 2019 when an arson attack in a posh Paris district killed 10 people and injured 32 others.
SHARE ME