The toll of the fire in a building in downtown Bressuire (Deux-Sèvres), overnight from Thursday to Friday, increased to five dead, the prosecution announced on Saturday afternoon.
“A new victim has just been discovered in the rubble, bearing the toll provisional at five deaths“, writes the public prosecutor of Niort Julien Wattebled, in a press release.
“Large resources are mobilized to continue the research in the building where the fire broke out, with the use of a crane truck and two aerial work platforms and technical means allowing a modeling of the places in three dimensions” he writes, stating that “however, access remained very complicated“.
“At this point, only one victim could be extracted from the building“. Their identification should take”several more days“, further specifies the prosecutor of Niort.
Shortly before 5:00 a.m., the fire had spread to the top of a building of two floors on Boulevard Maréchal Joffre, ravaging four studios located in the attic and destroying the staircase leading to it, the floor of the top floor as well than the roof.
The tenants of these four apartments, located in a stone building with a notarial office on the ground floor, were all from the Comoros, said the town hall.
On Saturday morning, Comoros Ambassador to France Ahamada Ahmadi visited places before meeting members of the Comorian community living on place, told AFP the mayor of Bressuire Emmanuelle Ménard, who accompanied him.
The city has opened a psychological help cell, in particular for the Comorian community. The owner of the premises was heard by the investigators, indicated the prefect and the mayor during a press briefing the day before.
Two men, aged 20 and 22, were able to be rescued, and their lives are not not in danger, according to the prosecution.
Nearly 70 firefighters, around fifty gendarmes, including investigators from the Bressuire research brigade, criminal identification technicians and experts from the National Gendarmerie’s criminal research institute were also mobilized on Friday.
–
