At least 17 people were killed and 30 others injured in a deadly fire in a seven-storey Paris apartment early Friday, firefighters said.

The blaze started at the stairs well between the third and sixth floors of the building at about 12:30 a. m. on Boulevard Vincent Auriol in the 13rd district of Paris, said Captain Jacques Dauvergne.

Some 210 firefighters from 23 firehouses were mobilized to fight the blaze, which was extinguished at 2:54 a.m. local time.

A police spokeswoman said 33 adults and 100 children lived in the block, many of them from African countries.

Most of the casualties were immigrants and "around half of the dead are children," she said.

According to French private Europe 1 radio, the injured were taken to several Paris hospitals and the French Interior Ministry had ordered a check into all buildings in France used to shelter homeless families.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2005)