“Nine bodies have been located, two are still untraceable”, following the fire which occurred on Wednesday August 9 in a guesthouse welcoming disabled people in Wintzenheim, near Colmar, said Lieutenant-Colonel Philippe at midday. Hauwiller, commander of relief operations. The firefighter spoke of the search complicated by “the many rubble and collapsed parts”.
“Unfortunately, there are not many doubts: all these people were present in the lodging and could not come out”, had declared earlier the secretary general of the prefecture of Haut-Rhin, Christophe Marot, present on place, citing “eleven people who may have died”.
Seventeen other people were evacuated and one, in relative emergency, was evacuated to hospital. The missing people are a supervisor and ten adults with mild mental disabilities, Mr. Marot told Agence France-Presse, saying he had “no information” on the causes of the disaster.
The fire broke out around 6:30 a.m. The Alsatian-style half-timbered building was the scene of a “widespread conflagration”, according to firefighters, who arrived on site “less than a quarter of an hour” after the fire. start of the disaster. “300 square meters were set on fire, on a building of 500 square meters”, describes the prefecture, confirming that “the fire was quickly brought under control despite the violence of the flames”. Seventy-six firefighters were mobilized.
“Everything burned”
The building is an old barn renovated into a gîte, with two floors and an attic, according to the firefighters, who said the fire started on the ground floor.
“The building is completely destroyed, reported on BFM-TV Daniel Leroy, deputy mayor of the Alsatian commune. There remains the ground floor, a little less affected. But the accommodation floor, there is nothing left, everything has burned down. »
The elected official also said that the missing persons were “all adults, there are no children”. “The building hosted for the holidays, two groups of adults with disabilities, supervised by two associations,” wrote the Haut-Rhin prefecture in a press release.
The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, announced in the morning to go there, accompanied by Aurore Bergé, Minister of Solidarity and Families. “My first thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” she added on X (formerly Twitter). I salute the mobilization of the firefighters. »
“Faced with this tragedy, my thoughts are with the victims, the injured, their loved ones,” Emmanuel Macron also wrote on X. “Thank you to our security forces and our mobilized rescue services. »