A fire that broke out in a seven-story building in Lyon, France killed 10 people, including five children, the French government said on Friday.
The dead included a three-year old child, with at least 14 building residents injured. Four people needed emergency treatment, AFP reported.
"We do not know the cause of the fire and the investigation will be able to find out," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters in Paris.
The fire in the Lyon commune of Vaulx-en-Velin was “shocking and the toll is extremely heavy,” Darmanin said, before heading to the scene of the blaze.
The fire, which occurred after 3:00 a.m., has been put out. Two firefighters were lightly injured while fighting the flames and thick smoke that spread from the building’s ground floor upward, putting all the building’s residents in jeopardy.
Around 170 firefighters were called to the scene to help extinguish the blaze which a witness described as “horrific,” according to the report.
Darmanin described emergency crews working in “difficult conditions” as it was one of the coldest nights of the winter so far.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)