Paris hotel fire kills 20

PARIS: Fire ravaged a central Paris hotel used by immigrants and tourists on Friday, killing at least 20 people including 10 children, said police.

Fifty people were also injured, including US, Portuguese, Senegalese, Ivorian, Tunisian and Ukrainian nationals and the death toll could rise because 11 others were seriously hurt, said a fire brigade spokesman. “It was one of the deadliest fires in Paris for years,” a spokesman for the French Red Cross said.

There was no explosion and arson was not suspected as the cause of the fire, which gutted the six-storey Paris-Opera hotel near the Galeries Lafayette luxury department store. Some victims tried to save themselves by jumping from upper floors and about 50 were treated in the Galeries Lafayette store which was used as a makeshift hospital, witnesses said. “You don’t often see such fires in Paris. There was only one staircase and the fire broke out on the lower floors. There was no explosion,” said fire brigade spokesman Laurent Vibert. reuters

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