Three children presumed dead in a fire in Wiggen LU
Published: Monday, Jan 22nd 2024, 15:30
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Three people, probably schoolchildren, died in a fire at a farmhouse in Wiggen, Lucerne, on Monday night. Three adults were injured.
The fire was reported to the police at 1.20 a.m., said Yanik Probst, spokesman for the Lucerne police, at a press point in Escholzmatt later on Monday morning. When the emergency services arrived, a residential building and an attached barn were fully engulfed in flames.
Three adults were injured in the fire and three children were still missing on Monday morning. In the afternoon, the public prosecutor's office announced that three fatalities had been recovered.
The investigating authorities assume that the victims are the missing children, according to the statement. The identification of the bodies is being carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Zurich.
Burning house was in danger of collapsing
The emergency services found the three adults in front of the burning house. Due to the risk of collapse, the fire department was unable to search for the three missing children in the building, said Godi Studer, commander of the Escholzmatt-Marbach fire department.
The search for the missing children was carried out by the Emmen LU fire department using an aerial rescue device. Thanks to this device, the search team was able to penetrate the ruins, which were in danger of collapsing, from a height and secured by ropes.
According to the police, the three children were six, seven and nine years old. They did not say anything about their relationship. According to Beat Duss, president of the municipality of Escholzmatt-Marbach, to which Wiggen also belongs, they are siblings.
According to Duss, the adults were the parents of the three children and the woman's partner, who all lived in the two apartments of the farmhouse. According to Lucerne police, the seriously injured are 36 and 43 years old. They were flown to hospital by helicopter. The slightly injured person is 38 years old. She is being cared for, the public prosecutor's office announced.
According to the authorities, the house was an old wooden farmhouse. A barn was attached to it without a firewall. The property was no longer used for farming. The cause of the fire was not yet known on Monday.
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