Over 100 firefighters battled the massive blaze in the 18th arrondissement
Local residents posted pictures of the fire on social media (Photo: Twitter)
Paris: A fire in an apartment building in the north of Paris early on Wednesday morning has killed eight people, including two children, according to police sources.
The fire in the eighteenth arrondissement, the cause of which is unknown, broke out at around 4:30 am (0230 GMT) and took more than 100 firefighters to contain it.
The eight victims included two who died after they attempted to escape through windows, according to police.
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet confirmed that the dead included two children. Four survivors are hospitalized. Brandet said the firefighters extinguished a small paper fire around 0023 GMT in the building, located at the foot of Paris' famed Montmartre hill. They were called back two hours later for a new fire that began in a ground floor stairwell and quickly engulfed the building's upper stories.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, present at the scene, said it was "too early to determine the causes of this tragedy".
( Source : afp / ap )
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