Firefighters continue the search for victims Monday, March 20, 2023 at the scene of last week’s fire that left one person dead and six people missing in Montreal.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
MONTREAL – Loved ones of the presumed victims of a deadly fire in Old Montreal were facing an agonizing wait for answers on Tuesday, as a recovery team worked to enter the charred shell of the building where one body has been found and six people remain missing.
Yukun Zeng said the wait to hear about what happened to his friend An Wu was “so heartbreaking.”
“I also talked with An’s other friends and other relatives, we still cannot totally understand why it takes so long,” he told reporters near the building. While he understands the investigation is complex, he doesn’t understand why police don’t share more about what they’re doing.
Wu is one of the six people who remain missing after a fire ripped through a historic building in Old Montreal on Thursday. The body of one woman was recovered, but she has not been identified.
Zeng described Wu as a neuroscientist doing post-doctoral work at the University California San Diego who was in Montreal for a conference. He said the 31-year-old decided to extend her stay for a night because she loved the city, adding that the late Montrealer Leonard Cohen was her favourite singer and poet.
“I just want to really emphasize she loved the city, and I hope the city also treated her well,” he said.
He said Wu’s parents were coming to Montreal from their home in China, and he hopes that they’ll get more information than he has been able to.
Charlie Lacroix, an 18-year-old from the Montreal suburb of Terrebonne, was also identified by her father as one of the missing. Lacroix had rented a unit in the building on Airbnb with a friend, he said.
Insp. David Shane told reporters on Tuesday that the unstable structure of the building makes it complicated and potentially dangerous to recover bodies.
Shane said identifying the bodies will be a “long process,” in part because victims need to be identified through at least one scientific method, such as dental records or DNA.
“We will not be able to give names very fast, but we cannot make a mistake,” said Shane, who recognized that the wait could feel “unbearable” for family members.
“We cannot give a name and then a few days later realize that we made a mistake. That is not an option.”
Shane said several floors of the building collapsed on each other, leaving a scene of “complete devastation.”
Fire operations chief Martin Guilbault said a recovery team explored the scene Monday with the help of cameras and visual inspections from the outside but did not recover any more victims.
On Tuesday, they planned to enter the building, but he said they would have to do much of their work while standing in the bucket of a crane due to the risk of further collapse.
A spokeswoman for the city’s forensics laboratory said the process to identify victims could also be complex, and could rely in part on DNA, which will be matched to samples provided by the victims’ families. The coroner’s office will also be involved in the investigation and the identification of victims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2023.
