France: Ten bodies found after fire at holiday home for disabled people

The bodies of ten people have been found and one other person is feared dead after a fire at a holiday home for disabled people in eastern France.

Earlier, officials said 11 people were missing – which included 10 adults with disabilities and one staff member.

Seventeen others were led to safety with one person taken to hospital in a “relative emergency” after a fire broke out at 6.30am local time in the north-eastern town of Wintzenheim, local authorities said.

Philippe Hauwiller, chief fire commander in Wintzenheim and head of rescue operations, told reporters: “We are looking for the bodies of those who could not leave the building.”

A tenth body has been found and a final body is still being sought, BFMTV has learned from the fire brigade.

Local authorities in Haut-Rhin said fire and rescue services deployed 76 firefighters, four fire engines and four ambulances and the fire was “quickly brought under control despite the violent flames”.

Forty police officers were also mobilised.

The holiday home in Wintzenheim, which is close to the border with Germany, was rented by a charity that takes care of people with learning disabilities, according to France 3.

Local authorities said those missing were from a group of people from the city of Nancy, a two-hour drive away.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the fire a “tragedy” and said his thoughts are with the victims, the injured and their families as he thanked emergency services.

The mayor of Nancy, Mathieu Klein, wrote he is “deeply saddened by the terrible fire” at the home that was accommodating disabled people from Nancy, on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

France’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said she was heading to the site.

Earlier, interior minister Gerald Darmanin said there were likely several casualties and that the flames ravaged most of the building – 300sq m of the 500sq m building – adding that rescue operations were still ongoing.