Three still missing after Old Montreal fire, police don’t believe there are additional victims

MONTREAL – Zafar Mahmood was still waiting on Thursday to hear whether his 32-year-old daughter was among the four people whose bodies have been pulled from the rubble of an Old Montreal building that caught fire last week.

Going a week without answers has been hard, Mahmood said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press from Lahore, Pakistan, as he described his cherished daughter Dania Zafar, who had been staying in the building the night of the fire.

“Whoever met her never forgot her; there was sparkling in her eyes, there was magic in her words,” he said. “She was so beautiful; she was so beautiful.”

Mahmood said his daughter was in Montreal with her childhood friend Saniya Khan, 31 – who is also missing – for a brief holiday, adding that he spoke to both of them the day before the blaze.

Saniya’s father, Mazhar Khan from Detroit, says it’s been a tough loss for his family.

“Part of my heart is gone,” he said. “I could not even imagine this what has happened to her. So we all miss her too much, actually. We all share her memories.”

“They were quite happy, they enjoyed the visit of the city,” Mahmood said, adding that the two were planning on staying in Montreal overnight and travelling back to Toronto the next day. “But they never could make the trip back.”

He described his daughter, who was self-employed and working in publishing in Toronto, as a free spirit, and a passionate and ambitious woman. He said she had a love of art, books and heritage. She was also in the process of getting Canadian citizenship, he said.

Mahmood said he has a lot of questions about why local officials didn’t better monitor the city’s short-term housing sector, adding that he thought the recovery process to find those missing was taking long. “The most important thing should be to recover the bodies first,” he said.

Search is ongoing, no additional victims

Montreal police have located four bodies in the rubble, three people remain missing after the March 16 fire.

At a press briefing Friday morning, police told reporters they do not believe there are additional victims.

“There are no elements indicating that there would be additional victims,” said Inspector David Shane of the Montreal police.

Pathologists are working to identify the bodies that have been located but authorities are not sure how long it will be as two methods are needed to confirm the identity of an individual including a scientific method using DNA or dental records.

Thursday firefighters brought in a second crane to speed up the removal of debris from the historic stone building that was built in 1890 and – according to police – used for illegal Airbnb rentals

The action plan for Friday is to continue using cranes to remove large pieces of debris out of the building to make is safer for rescuers. This will allow them to search new parts of what’s left of the building.

“Rescuers have been working tirelessly from sun up to sun down,” said Montreal fire chief Martin Guilbault. He assured the public they would continue to work throughout the weekend and are committed to bringing answers to families as quickly as possible.“We know the wait is painful for families, we are in touch with them,” added Shane.

Officials have so far identified one victim: 76-year-old Camille Maheux, a photographer. Maheux’s older brother, Benoit, said he learned about the fire, and that his sister was among the missing people, from the news.

“One of my other sisters also told me that probably our sister Camille was in that fire. She lived in that building for at least 30 years,” Maheux said. “I am really saddened by what happened. But unfortunately, there is nothing to do.”

Benoit Maheux’s wife, Lorraine Doyon, described her sister-in-law as very intelligent and curious. “She was able to talk about so many different subjects. She was an avid reader,” she said.

“It’s very sad. We were very shocked to hear the news. My God. To die by fire. It’s horrible.”

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Other people missing since the fire include An Wu, 31, a neuroscientist doing post-doctoral work at the University of California San Diego, who was in Montreal for a conference. Takaki Komiyama, her colleague at the university’s Komiyama Lab, issued a statement on Thursday calling her “creative, fearless, and forward-thinking, with a constant desire to learn.”

“Our hearts are broken with the possibility of our worst fear becoming reality. Our thoughts are with An, An’s family and friends. We are grateful for the overwhelming flow of kindness that we have received in the past few days, during our extremely difficult and uncertain time,” he wrote.

Another person who has been identified as missing is Charlie Lacroix, an 18-year-old from the Montreal suburb of Terrebonne. She had rented a unit in the building on Airbnb with a friend, and Lacroix’s father said his daughter told 911 operators that she was trapped in a unit with no fire escape or windows.

Authorities have not confirmed how many of the missing people were tourists but said they were from Quebec, Ontario and the United States.

The Montreal police force, who is in charge of the investigation, said Friday the daily press briefings would now be stopped. Moving forward press conferences will only be held when authorities have new information for the public.

-With files from The Canadian Press