3 dead after home explosion in Saguenay
A 39-year-old man and two young children are dead following an explosion inside a home in the Jonquière borough of the city of Saguenay, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Quebec City.
Firefighters, police and paramedics were called to a house on Dubose Street in the Arvida neighbourhood Monday morning. Radio-Canada is reporting that the basement windows of a home were blown out and the circumstances leading to the explosion are raising questions.
Neighbour Régis Bélanger says he was surprised by a loud noise at around 10 a.m.
"I heard a "boom" like an explosion of dynamite," he told Radio-Canada.
"I was in my house with my wife and we both jumped. I went outside, looked beside my place and saw all the windows were gone from the front of the house."
Sûreté du Québec (SQ) Sergeant Hugues Beaulieu says the explosion happened in the basement apartment of a duplex and while local officers were the first to respond, the investigation was handed over to provincial police.
Beaulieu says the SQ's major crimes unit is handling the investigation, with help from forensic identification and explosives technicians.
