A FIRE that raged through an old people's home in eastern Quebec, trapping residents dependent on wheelchairs, left five dead and around 30 missing.
Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper warned there was little doubt the death toll would be high. Officials said firefighters saw and heard people in the building that they were unable to save.
Many of those unaccounted for were confined to wheelchairs and only five residents in the centre were fully able to care for themselves, said Ginette Caron, acting mayor of the small town of L'Isle-Verte, about 140 miles from Quebec City.
Firefighters arrived within eight minutes of getting the alarm and several fire departments in the region were called in to help.
But they were unable to carry out a complete evacuation because of the intensity of the blaze. About 20 residents were transported to safety.
Pascal Fillion, who lives near the home, said rescuers felt helpless against a fast-moving blaze with thick smoke.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article