A fire killed 14 people in a suspected arson attack in a high-rise apartment block in Paris yesterday, the third major blaze in the French capital in just over a week, police said.

Two children were among the victims, most of whom were killed by smoke and fumes, and at least 13 people were hurt in the low-cost 18-storey building in the southern suburbs of the capital, a police spokesman said.

"The official toll is 14 dead but the toll is unfortunately going to rise," he said.

Local officials said they suspected the fire was started deliberately in a letterbox in the entrance of the building, and were looking for four young people whom witnesses saw in the hallway just before the blaze started.

"The first indications point to a fire caused by a criminal act," said Patrick Seve, mayor of the L'Hay-les-Roses district where the fire broke out around 1:00 AM (23:00 GMT Saturday).

Many victims were choked or suffocated by the fumes in extremely high temperatures after opening their doors. People who stayed in their apartments were safe.

"The people who stayed inside were fine. It's the people who rushed out and ran into temperatures of 300 C, smoke and asphyxia, that gave rise to the terrible toll," said deputy fire chief Alain Antonini.

Unlike the two other fires in the past 10 days, Sunday's blaze did not sweep through rundown housing for immigrants but was in a low cost social apartment block known as an HLM housing about 800 people in 110 flats.

About 160 firefighters tackled the fire and quickly brought it under control.

A young woman gave birth in an ambulance after being evacuated from the building, fire and police officials said. Mother and son were doing well.

"We brought nothing out with us," one resident, who gave her name only as Dany, told reporters.

Asked how she felt, she said: "Anxious, empty. We don't know where to go."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin sent his condolences.

Officials said President Jacques Chirac discussed the blaze with an aide by telephone from hospital in Paris, where the head of state has been taken for a blood vessel problem affecting his sight.

The fire followed a blaze which killed seven people in a rundown building housing immigrants last week and a fire which killed 17 African immigrants three days earlier.

Twenty-four people were killed in a fire in another rundown building housing immigrants in April.

The fires have raised questions over safety and the treatment of immigrants, and President Jacques Chirac has demanded action to prevent further such tragedies.

(China Daily September 5, 2005)