A drama took place on the night of Sunday to Monday, the prefecture of Charente announced. A fire in a cottage welcoming adults with disabilities in Charente made one dead and four people are still missing, announced on Monday this prefecture.
Four other people were “evacuated to the hospital center, including a person in absolute emergency,” said the prefecture in a statement about this fire which declared itself around 4:30 am in the town of Montmoreau, south of Angoulême.
Twelve people with disabilities
“Many means have been initiated including 68 firefighters and 4 fire struggle. Currently fire is under control, 300 m2 of buildings have been destroyed, ”said the prefecture.
According to a gendarmerie source, twelve people with disabilities were inside, in addition to the couple who hold the cottage.
Probable electrical malfunction
The fire would be due to a malfunction of the electrical installation, according to the same source. The buried building is a former farmhouse and had “the label to welcome disabled people during the holiday season,” Jean-Michel Bolvin, mayor of this town of around 2,400 inhabitants told AFP.
This fire occurs a little less than two years after the one who had killed eleven in a former barn transformed into a gîte welcoming people with a light handicap in Wintzenheim (Haut-Rhin), near Colmar. Ten adults with disabilities and an accompanist had perished in the disaster.