Another child adds to Paris fire tragedy

Firefighters sifting the debris of a devastating hotel fire in Paris found the body of a small child yesterday, raising the death toll to 22 – half of them children, police said.

The Friday morning fire at the six-story Paris Opera hotel, housing mostly needy people placed there by social services, was the worst in recent memory in the French capital.

Police said that firefighters digging through the debris early yesterday found the body of a young child. The body of a woman was found Friday night, hours after the blaze had been extinguished. The nationalities of the dead have not been provided.

The overcrowded 32-room hotel in the touristic 9th district was meant to handle 61 people, but at least 90 people – many of them Africans – were known to be living there at the time of the fire.

The blaze was thought to have started in a breakfast shortly after 2am (midnight Irish time). An investigation for manslaughter has been opened, but officials suggested the probe could be lengthy, given the devastation caused by the fire. Parts of the fragile structure risk collapsing.

The hotel’s fire prevention system had been checked March 24, and four recommendations to improve safety were issued. However, the measures were not sufficient to close down the hotel, the police headquarters said.

Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said yesterday that he plans to work quickly toward new measures to reinforce fire regulations. Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Villepin said he had asked experts for proposals, and that the matter should be handled with several weeks.

Meanwhile, two associations that work with immigrants and the needy, Right to Housing and Rights First, called for a demonstration today in front of the ravaged Paris Opera hotel to denounce “the scandalous treatment the government reserves for the poor and the needy”.

Social services have relocated the survivors to another hotel in a Paris suburb, while families continued their search for loved ones.

The fire has claimed more victims than any fire in recent memory in the French capital. A 1973 blaze in an eastern Paris school killed 20 people, 16 of them students.