Hotel fire kills at least 20

People jumped from windows or screamed for rescue from flames as a pre-dawn fire roared through a Paris hotel used to house needy African families this morning, killing at least 20 people, half of them children.

More than 50 people were injured, 11 seriously, in the blaze that was thought to have started in a ground floor breakfast room of the one-star Paris Opera hotel, in the capital’s 9th district.

Eight hours later, rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the inside of the scorched building.

Many guests were African. Paris City Hall had rented rooms in the six-story hotel to temporarily house families from Africa. City Hall said that nine people, including five children, were housed there while some 65 others without means, some asylum seekers, were housed by state services.

The fire broke out after 2am (1am Irish time). It spread quickly, causing panic.

At least one person sought refuge on the burning roof, screaming and waving frantically for help as flames poured from windows and fire officers scrambled up ladders. Two others yelled for help from the window of a burning room. A fire officer cradled an infant in his arms as he carried him to safety amid jets of water from fire hoses that doused the flames.

The injured came from France, the US, Portugal, Senegal, Tunisia, Ukraine and Ivory Coast, Paris police said. A Canadian also was slightly injured. The nationalities of the dead were not given.

Fire officials said some people jumped out of windows to escape flames and choking smoke.

The injured were treated and dead bodies temporarily stored in Galeries Lafayette, one of Paris’ busiest and most famous department stores.

French President Jacques Chirac said it was one of Paris’ “most painful catastrophes.”

The fire took more than an hour to bring under control and still smouldered hours later. More than 250 firefighters and 50 fire engines were at the scene.

Nearly all of the hotel’s six floors were blackened inside.

The dead were recovered “from the road, from inside, just about everywhere,” said a fire services spokesman.

The bodies of four people of African origin were found in the breakfast room where the fire is thought to have started.