Europe 1 with AFP 11:31 a.m., February 14, 2022
After an explosion that occurred overnight from Sunday to Monday in the town of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque in the Pyrénées-Orientales and caused a fire, five people died and four people were injured.
An investigation has been opened to determine the causes of the explosion.
Five people died in the night from Sunday to Monday, during a fire triggered by an explosion, in a town in the Pyrénées-Orientales, AFP learned from the public prosecutor of Perpignan.
After the explosion, which occurred around 1:30 a.m. in the main street of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque, near a grocery store, the fire broke out in small two-storey buildings on either side of the street.
An open investigation
Monday morning, several fire trucks were deployed, as well as a crane, in the center of this town of 10,000 inhabitants.
Firefighters were busy in the rubble of buildings.
Before that, a man in his thirties had been evacuated, in absolute emergency, after jumping from the second floor to escape the flames.
Three other minor injuries were counted by firefighters.
An investigation has been opened to determine the causes of the explosion.
A hundred firefighters mobilized
At the start of the morning, Jean-David Cavaillé, the Perpignan prosecutor, had reported that there was no news from a family, of which we do not know if they were in their accommodation.
Various residents of the neighborhood had to be relocated, we learned from the town hall, some of whom were evacuated to the village hall of the town located near the Mediterranean coast.
Nearly a hundred firefighters were mobilized at the height of the night.
The floors of several houses collapsed.