11 dead in fire at French holiday home for disabled

The blaze broke out before 6.30 a.m. (0430 GMT), as the holiday-goers with disabilities and their carers were still asleep in the two-storey building in the town of Wintzenheim, about 70 km (50 miles) south of Strasbourg, Reuters reported.

"We think we have located the 11 bodies," a firefighter told Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne as she visited the site of the incident. Eight bodies have been found and three more were thought to have been located under the rubble.

The holiday home was rented for the summer by two charities that take care of people with learning disabilities, local media said. Twenty-eight people were staying there, and 17 of them managed to escape the fire.

"A few of the people who were (sleeping) on the first floor managed to escape, but most of those who got out were on the ground floor," Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Hauwiller, who headed the rescue operations, told reporters earlier in the day.

The fire destroyed about two-thirds of the building.

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the blaze.

Nathalie Kielwasser, a deputy prosecutor for the region, told reporters it had likely been a low level fire that had burnt for a while before growing bigger and tearing the house down.

Those missing were likely to have been aged between 25 and 50, Wintzenheim deputy mayor Daniel Leroy told BFM TV.

SKH/PR