The fire which caused the death of a child on Wednesday morning in an indebted and degraded private condominium in Marseille does not seem to be linked to the condition of the building, the Marseille prosecutor's office said on Friday (January 7).
Read also Marseille: a five-year-old child dies in an apartment fire
"
The first observations made on the spot by the officials of the national scientific police service (SNPS) (allow) to establish that the fire (started) then spread from the sofa arranged in the center of the main room
", specifies in a press release the Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens.
"
No electrical malfunction
" was "
noted in the apartment where the fire remained contained.
At this stage of the investigations, there is no objective evidence to establish that the outbreak and the spread of the fire were linked or aggravated by the condition of the building
, ”added the same source.
Two other children affected
Seven people were present in the apartment when the fire broke out shortly before 8 a.m. on the ninth floor and penultimate floor of a building in the Cité des Rosiers located in the working-class districts of the north of Marseille. A four-year-old child, seriously burned, died of his injuries on the spot during his medical treatment. Two other children aged five and three, a one month old baby and three adults suffered burns and / or were inconvenienced to varying degrees by the fumes, the prosecution said.
This tragedy had provoked many reactions in the Marseilles political class, some elected officials blaming the degradation of the building.
Composed of nine buildings where some 3,600 people live, 11% of whom are owners, the Rosiers residence is considered to be one of the 21 most fragile condominiums in Marseille.
The municipality had told AFP in July that it had carried out several interventions to detect unsanitary conditions in the city, specifying that this action could not "
constitute the only response to the problematic situation of Rosiers which, she said, requires action. comprehensive and collective with all the competent housing institutions
”.