LONGUEUIL – Three people are dead after a four-alarm fire raged through an apartment complex in Longueuil.
It broke out just before 2 a.m. on Terrasse Turgeon Street.
The blaze intensified and spread through the three-storey building after a back wall collapsed, causing a gas leak.
About 20 residents were trapped in their homes and had to be rescued from their balconies with ladders.
“There is no word I can use to describe what they are going through,” said Lynn Doyon, Director General of Carrefour Mousseau, a non-profit organization located across the street from the apartment building.
Doyon said that area of Longueuil is particularly impoverished and the victims are devastated.
“All they own was left to burn. They have no insurance. They barely have anything to eat,” she told Global News.
Three children and five adults were treated for shock and smoke inhalation.