The loss of life toll from the blast, which additionally injured round 30 individuals, stays “provisional,” in accordance with French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who instructed reporters it was “a historic tragedy for the area.”
The explosion occurred in a single day at round 1:30 a.m. native time, inflicting a hearth in a small two-story constructing positioned on the primary road, in accordance with CNN affiliate BFMTV.
Colonel Alexandre Trani, head of operations for the fireplace and rescue service for the Western Pyrenees, instructed BFMTV that one individual was lacking and added that there’s a “robust chance” that the lacking individual is inside what stays of the constructing.
He stated firefighters had been assessing whether or not the construction was steady sufficient to start looking via the rubble for the lacking individual, including the operation was “very, very, very sophisticated given the steadiness of the constructing.”
Trani added that one other one who was “significantly burned” within the incident had been transported to a specialist middle.
He confirmed to BFMTV that whereas the fireplace had been put out within the early hours of the morning, a couple of hotspots remained as of mid-afternoon.
An investigation into the incident has been opened, in accordance with the general public prosecutor Jean-David Cavaillé, who stated that gasoline cylinders could have been the trigger.
{A photograph} shared on Twitter by Olivier Dussopt, the French minister liable for public accounts, who had traveled to the scene of the explosion, appeared to point out the charred wreckage of the constructing.
“Our ideas are with the victims and their family members. The State is right here for them,” Dussopt stated.
The accidents suffered had been each bodily and psychological, Darmanin instructed BFMTV.
“On behalf of the Nation, I supply all my help and all my solidarity to the households and family members of the victims,” Darmanin added on Twitter.
Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque is a village within the Pyrenees-Orientales area of southwest France.