Ten people, including five children as young as 3, died after a nighttime fire ravaged an eight-story apartment building Friday in one of the French city of Lyon's poorest suburbs, local authorities said.
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The cause of the blaze, France's deadliest residential fire in years, was under investigation, including to establish whether it had a criminal origin.
Witness reports carried on French media described scenes of horror, including residents smashing windows to try to climb out of the building and a mother throwing her child out of a window to be safely caught by a person on the ground.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin arrived quickly at the scene in the small suburban town of Vaulx-en-Velin, some 470 kilometers (290 miles) southeast of Paris, reflecting the scale of the tragedy. He praised the 170 firefighters who mobilized after flames tore through the center of the modern apartment block.
They intervened "within 12 minutes at 3 a.m. and were able to save 15 people by taking considerable risks for their own lives," he said.
