Child's body found in Paris fire debris
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-18 09:08

Firefighters sorting through the debris of a burned-out Paris hotel found the body of a small child Sunday, raising the number killed in Friday's blaze to 22, police said. Half of the victims were children.

The fire at the Paris Opera hotel, housing mostly people in need who were placed there by social services, was Paris' worst in recent memory. A 1973 blaze in an eastern Paris school killed 20 people, 16 of them students.

A firefighter throws a mattress from the hotel in which 22 people died, Saturday April 16, 2005 in Paris. [AP]

Two associations that work with immigrants and the needy, Right to Housing and Rights First, called for a demonstration Monday in front of the hotel to denounce "the scandalous treatment the government reserves for the poor and the needy."

Social services have relocated the survivors to another hotel in a Paris suburb, while families continued their search for loved ones.

Police said firefighters digging through debris early Sunday found the body of a young child. The body of a woman was found Friday night, hours after the blaze had been extinguished. The nationalities of the dead have not been provided.

The overcrowded 32-room hotel, in the 9th district popular with tourists, was meant to accommodate 61 people, but at least 90 people — many of them Africans — were known to be living there.

Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Sunday that he plans to work quickly toward new measures to reinforce fire regulations. He told Europe 1 radio that he has asked experts for proposals and that the matter should be handled with several weeks.

The hotel's fire prevention system had been checked March 24, and four recommendations to improve safety were issued, but the measures were insufficient to close down the hotel, police said.

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