At least ten people died on Friday in a fire which broke out in a hotel welcoming homeless people in Porto Alegre, a large city in southern Brazil.
“Ten victims have been confirmed,” announced the firefighters of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in a press release. According to the same Source, the hotel operated in an “illegal” manner: the establishment did not have an operating permit or a fire prevention plan.
Thirteen people were admitted to two hospitals in the region, including six in serious condition, the town hall said.
“It happened very quickly, they shouted ‘fire’ and the fire was already in two rooms next to mine, I ran away because there was already a lot of smoke,” he told the site. information G1 a resident of the home, who requested anonymity.
Images broadcast by local media showed a three-story building on fire, and firefighters working to put it out. The latter arrived on the scene around 2:00 a.m. (05:00 GMT) and brought the fire under control around three hours later.
An AFP photographer was able to see the blackened and seriously damaged facade of the establishment. Forensic doctors attended the scene to identify the victims and investigate the causes of the fire.
An official three-day mourning was declared by Mayor Sebastiao Melo.
– “Tragedy announced” –
“It is with sadness and concern that I learned of the death of at least ten people in the fire,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on X, expressing solidarity with the victims’ relatives.
The governor of the state, Eduardo Leite, also said he was “deeply shocked” by the tragedy, also on this social network.
Porto Alegre’s civil protection director, Evaldo Rodrigues de Oliveira, said a team was assessing the damage to the structure of the building, which is part of a network of budget hotels in the city. city of Porto Alegre.
Matheus Gomes, a member of the state legislature, denounced the fact that the hotel was receiving funds from the city despite allegations of “irregularities” for “years.” “It is necessary to investigate not only the fire, but also what led to this announced tragedy,” he added on X.
In 2013, in the same state of Rio Grande do Sul, a fire in a nightclub in the city of Santa Marta killed 242 people.
Most of the victims had perished asphyxiated by the toxic cloud released by the flammable material present in the roof of the room, which had no working fire extinguishers and had only two evacuation doors, which were also poorly signposted, according to investigation.
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