Firefighters are still looking for a missing person after the explosion on Wednesday in a building in downtown Paris. There was a second missing person who has already been identified at the hospital. He is one of the 37 injured after the tremendous detonation that collapsed the facade of a building that housed an international fashion school on rue Saint-Jacques, in the fifth arrondissement of Paris.
The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, gave a new balance of victims on Wednesday night, as the first figures increased rapidly throughout the afternoon. In total, 37 wounded, four of them serious. This Thursday the Paris prosecutor’s office has raised the number to 50, also including the people psychologically affected by the event.
Firefighters continue to work in the rain. The housing minister, Oliver Kleinhas confirmed that “the search continues until all doubts are cleared up.”
The area is still cordoned off and the families of the adjoining buildings that were evacuated They have spent the night in a center set up by the Paris City Council. The Minister of Health, Francois Braunpointed out this morning in an interview with BFM that there is two of the victims whose lives are still in danger, as they “suffer significant burns”. Among the injured, several students from the aforementioned school and three slightly injured children.
Olivier Klein has indicated that it cannot yet be confirmed that the origin of the explosion was a gas leak, although everything seemed to point to it. In fact, in the street there was a strong smell of gas. The “first elements lead us to confirm that this explosion started from the building”, declared the prosecutor of the Republic of Paris, Laure Becua. An investigation has been opened for “involuntary injuries” to clarify the causes. The lightly injured are also being questioned and security cameras are being reviewed.