Live: Fire in upscale Paris apartment building kills 10

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Live: Fire in upscale Paris apartment building kills 10
Date created : 05/02/2019 - 05:59
Latest update : 05/02/2019 - 12:43

A massive fire in an apartment in the affluent 16th arrondissement (district) in western Paris killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more in the early hours of Tuesday, in what investigators are treating as a possible arson attack.

    Firefighters working overnight have extinguished the blaze in an apartment building on rue Erlanger in western Paris
    10 people have been killed and another 38 injured in the blaze
    Investigation favouring “criminal” cause of blaze, says Paris prosecutor
    A 40-year-old woman who lived in the building has been held for questioning
    A number of residents managed to escape to the roof from where they were rescued by firefighters
    Authorities have cordoned off the area of the blaze and evacuated surrounding buildings

... Le Parisien has interviewed a neighbour of the woman who was detained by police on suspicions of setting the building on fire. Himself a firefighter, the neighbour gives his version of events leading up to the deadly blaze.
 
“She must have set fire to my apartment to get back at me,” he says, after explaining that he had previously called the police because of the noise she was making in her apartment late on Monday.
 
“When I bumped into her she wished me good luck, saying I must love fire because I’m a firefighter. That’s when I smelled something burning and realised she had set fire to the whole floor. She then ran away.  ...

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