Spain: at least 13 dead in nightclub fire, according to latest report

At least 13 people died on Sunday morning in a nightclub fire in Murcia, in the southeast of Spain. The toll, which is provisional for the moment, continues to rise. Several hours after the tragedy, the police are still looking for bodies in the rubble.

“Experts from the scientific and judicial police were deployed to the Murcia nightclub where a fire took place at dawn to investigate. There are at this stage eleven deaths,” announced the national police on the social network. X”, formerly Twitter. “Firefighters continue to work at the scene and do not rule out the possibility of finding new victims,” emergency services have been warning for several hours.

The fire broke out around six in the morning in a nightclub located in the Atalayas district of Murcia. Firefighters dispatched to the scene at 7 a.m. managed to extinguish the fire at 8 a.m. But “there are still corpses to be removed” from the rubble, a complicated task given the “proven risk of collapse”, said the mayor of Murcia José Ballesta. Four people were also injuredtwo women aged 22 and 25 and two men aged 41 and 45, after inhaling smoke.

No preferred lead for the origin of the fire

“Priority is given to locating the bodies” in the building, a spokesperson for the national police told AFP. “The scientific police and firefighters continue to locate the possible missing people because there was an anniversary (Saturday) evening and the participants were not all found,” she continued.

The causes of the fire are not known at this time. “The investigation has not yet started since the results have not been established. Consequently, there is no preferred lead at the moment,” added the spokesperson. “According to initial information, the fire apparently broke out on the first floor of the nightclub“, which has a ground floor and a first floor, and that’s where the fire seems to have started,” Diego Seral, the local spokesperson for the national police, explained on Murcia’s Onda Regional radio.

Murcia Mayor José Ballesta decreed three days of mourning in memory of the victims and the municipality has set up a reception unit for the victims’ relatives.