Emergency workers yesterday combed through wreckage after a blaze ripped through a packed Spanish nightclub complex, killing 13 people, to try to understand the cause of the fire.
The blaze, which broke out early on Sunday in a building housing the Teatre and Fonda Milagros discos on the outskirts of the southeastern city of Murcia, was Spain’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than three decades.
Murcia City Hall had in January last year ordered the nightclubs shut as the company that operated them only had a licence for one of them — the Teatre — and not for Fonda which was created later, Murcia Deputy Mayor Antonio Navarro told a news conference.
Photo: AFP / Murica Region 112 Emergency Services
“We are going to determine all responsibilities,” he said without explaining why the discos were still operating.
All of the people who were reported missing after the fire have been accounted for, including three people who were at a beach and had their mobile phones turned off, local officials said.
“It seems that there are no more people missing,” the head of the Murcia regional government, Fernando Lopez Miras, told Spanish public television.
Photo: Reuters
Police suspect the fire broke out in the Fonda nightclub and then spread to neighboring venues as patrons raced to escape.
“The fatalities were all concentrated in a very small area in the Fonda establishment,” police spokesman Diego Seral said, adding that a birthday party was being held there at the time.
Video footage released by the Murcia fire brigade showed firefighters holding a long hose approaching fierce flames inside the venue, passing bar tables that still had drinks on them.
A man named Jairo, who said he was the father of one of the victims, told reporters his 28-year-old daughter had been inside one of the clubs.
He had received no news of her since she left a desperate voice mail message at 6:06am, he said.
“Mum, I love you. We’re going to die. I love you mum,” a young woman’s voice could be heard crying on the recording, while in the background people shouted for someone to turn on the lights.
The fire appears to have spread through the air-conditioning vents “which is why it spread so quickly,” said the central government’s representative in Murcia, Francisco Jimenez.
Police said three of the victims had been identified by their fingerprints. The rest of the bodies would have to be identified using DNA samples from close relatives.
“We must be patient with the identification of the bodies... The bodies are very badly burned and it is going to be very difficult for experts to work on them,” Jimenez said.
Four people — two women aged 22 and 25, and two men in their 40s — were treated for smoke inhalation, officials said.
Murcia City Hall announced three days of mourning, and a minute of silence was observed at noon yesterday for the victims.
“We are devastated, shocked,” Lopez Miras said after meeting family members of the victims.
“There is nothing we can say to console relatives and friends of the victims. You are left without words,” he said.
Firefighters dispatched to the scene at 7am were able to extinguish the fire by 8am, Murcia Mayor Jose Ballesta said.
It was the worst nightclub fire in Spain since 43 people died in 1990 at a blaze at a disco in Zaragoza.
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