A 5-year-old girl dies after a fire in Mulhouse

“Unfortunately the child died as a result of this fire,” said Mulhouse public prosecutor Edwige Roux-Morizot.

The woman, born in 1990, her son born in 2015 and a niece born in 2017 “were rushed to hospital in absolute urgency and the youngest of the children went into cardiopulmonary arrest and could not be resuscitated “, she clarified.

According to firefighters, the fire broke out around 12:15 p.m. in an apartment on the 1st floor of a small four-storey building in the northeast of Mulhouse. The fire, which spread to the 2nd floor and the stairwell, was extinguished around 2 p.m., mobilizing 80 firefighters.

call for air

The three main victims were on the 3rd floor. “When she saw that there was smoke in the common areas, the mother of the family opened the door and the window at the same time and it called for air,” explained Ms. Roux-Morizot.

Seven other people were slightly injured after inhaling fumes, according to firefighters and the Haut-Rhin prefecture.

“At this stage, the circumstances behind the fire are not known,” the prefecture said in a statement. She added that the social landlord M2A Habitat, owner of the accommodation, would take care of the families concerned.

An investigation for manslaughter and involuntary injuries has been opened. The president of the Grand Est region and former mayor of Mulhouse, Jean Rottner, expressed on Twitter “all (s)on support” in the face of “this tragedy (which) affects the entire Mulhouse community”.