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Five dead in a fire in Strasbourg: the "simple electrical failure" put aside

2020-02-27T21:15:08.015Z


An electrical expert found “no mess”. Two men were still in police custody on Thursday evening.


Is this a criminal act? The track of a "simple electrical failure" seemed dismissed Thursday evening in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) after the fire of a building rue de Barr, in the district of the station. Five people died and seven others were injured overnight.

"A judicial expert specialized in fire matters as well as an electrical expert", dispatched to the scene, did not detect "any electrical disorder […] at this stage of their investigations," the prosecutor announced in a press release de Strasbourg, Yolande Renzi, effectively dismissing this hypothesis initially put forward by the authorities.

Two people heard

The magistrate confirmed that "two individuals were arrested near the scene and placed in police custody during the night" and specified that they were heard for "destruction of property by dangerous means for those who resulted in death" .

"Their hearings are in progress to determine their possible participation in the facts," she continued. A police source said Thursday morning that the two men, aged about fifty, had been arrested "for verification".

Complex investigations

The investigation initially entrusted to the Departmental Security now involves the Strasbourg Judicial Police "because of the complexity of the investigations to be carried out," added Yolande Renzi.

Called for a release of smoke in the stairwell of a seven-story building, the firefighters had to face "many rescues and safety due to the thick smoke that had invaded the commons."

"Very quickly suffocated"

Three men aged 30 to 45, as well as two women aged 25 and around 70, died in this incident, according to the director of cabinet of the prefecture of the Grand Est Region, Dominique Schuffenecker.

Living for the most part alone, the victims were "very quickly asphyxiated" when they went, "we imagine under the effect of panic, in common, in the corridors," he said.

According to the prosecutor, the five lifeless bodies were discovered "inside (the building) and mainly in the stairwell" by the firefighters. The victims are being identified at the Strasbourg Institute of Forensic Medicine, she said.

"The walls literally melted"

"The intensity of the heat was such that the firefighters told us that the walls were literally melting", described Dominique Schuffenecker, according to whom "the building of the 1970s is neither unsanitary nor dilapidated". Among the seven hospital wounded, whose lives are not in danger, is a pregnant woman.

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"There was traffic on site," pointed out for his part Yves Reutenauer, manager of the condominiums of this building which mainly houses studios and two-room rentals. "It was very violent, it was charred, black everywhere in the commons," he described.

The incident mobilized 48 firefighters and 23 machines. Only traces of the drama on the facade of the building: black streaks on the third floor, around wide open windows.

"My wife wanted to jump out the window"

Amadou Diallo, who lives in the 7th with his wife, told AFP that he heard his neighbor shout at the fire at night. “I opened the door and saw lots of smoke, my wife was panicked and wanted to jump out the window. "

With his wife, two months pregnant, they managed to reach the roof through a window and waited for the firefighters there for a few minutes before being evacuated. "I went out in pants, without shoes," testified Amadou Diallo.

"Heads to all windows"

Angélique Étienne, a resident of a neighboring building, heard around 1:30 am "a lady who was shouting that she wanted to jump out of the window" and "the firefighters who said: Calm down, we're going to get you out of there ".

"There were heads on all the windows, everyone was trying to get out" and "smoke was coming out from both sides" of the building. Then, bodies were placed in the stairwell of her building, she said.

The evacuees were received in a gymnasium. Nine will have to be relocated by the municipality. A medico-psychological emergency unit was activated and an association for assistance to victims requested by the prosecution.

Source: leparis

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