Five children and five adults were killed in a fire that broke out in an apartment building in France the early hours of Friday, authorities said. The blaze in Vaulx-en-Velin near the southeastern city of Lyon also left four people seriously injured as flames erupted on the ground floor and tore through the seven-story building, according to local reports. The children killed were between the ages of 3 and 15, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. “I was woken up by the screams,” a neighbor, Mohamed, told Le Progres de Lyon newspaper. “We wanted to help people but the smoke was too thick.” Another witness quoted in local reports said one woman threw her child into a crowd outside the building before jumping out of the window herself, falling to her death. The fire, which began at around 3 a.m. local time, has since been extinguished. The Lyon prosecutor’s office is investigating how the tragedy started.
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