PARIS. The search continues in Paris to find a person still missing after the explosion yesterday afternoon of a building that housed the American Paris Academy in the Latin Quarter, not far from the Panthéon and the Sorbonne University, which caused at least 4 serious injuries. “The search continues,” declares the police prefecture, specifying that one of the two people missing yesterday is still wanted under the rubble. The explosion and fire in rue Saint-Jacques – the ancient “cardo maximus” of the old Lutetia Parisiorum founded by the Romans – also caused another 33 minor injuries, according to reports from the Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of Health, François Braun, spoke of two people still hospitalized in danger of life: “My first thoughts go to the victims and their families,” he added.
Huge fire in Paris, a building collapses in the center. The hypothesis of the gas leak
The public prosecutor’s office quickly opened an investigation into “culpable injury” with the aggravating circumstance of “deliberately endangering the lives of others” even though “nothing currently allows us to determine the origin of the disaster”.
The explosion occurred mid-afternoon on Wednesday in Alphonse Laveran square, in the fifth arrondissement. The building that was destroyed used to house an American school of fashion and design. Mayor Anne Hidalgo arrived immediately on site, while 230 firefighters isolated the entire neighborhood for safety reasons, controlled by some army soldiers according to reports from Le Figaro. A dog unit also intervened to identify traces of explosives.
Paris, explosion near the Panthéon: a building collapses in the center, the view from above
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, opening the concert organized at the Elysée for the June 21 Music Festival, yesterday evening addressed a message of solidarity “for all the victims and their families who live in anguish”, after the explosion . «Tonight – Macron wrote in a tweet – we celebrate music, but the heart does not feel like celebrating. Let’s think of all those affected by the explosion in Paris, of the missing, of the rescue workers who are at work”. Gérald Darmanin also arrived at the scene in the evening: the Interior Minister expressed his gratitude to the rescuers, the police and above all the firefighters who are searching the rubble for possible victims or survivors.