LAST UPDATE | 1 Oct 2023
AT LEAST THIRTEEN people were killed in a fire in a Spanish nightclub this morning, authorities said, with rescue efforts still ongoing.
Emergency services said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that firefighters were continuing to work at the scene and had not ruled out “the possibility of finding more victims.”
Rescuers said they were first alerted at around 6:00 am local time that a fire had broken out in the two-storey nightclub.
They finally managed to enter around four hours later and discovered four bodies, then two others around forty minutes later. An hour later, the Murcia town hall confirmed the toll had risen to seven.
According to photos released by emergency services, the fire broke out in the “Teatre” nightclub, also called “Fonda Milagros”. The photos showed water hoses from fire trucks still spraying the blackened facade of the club.
Thick smoke could be seen billowing from the roof of the building.
Mayor of Murcia Jose Ballesta told press at the scene that “there are still bodies to be pulled out” from the rubble, which he said was a complicated task given the “risk of collapse”.
A police spokesperson said that a birthday party was being held at the club last night, and warned that not all the attendees had yet been found.
“According to initial information, the fire broke out on the first floor of the nightclub, which has a ground floor and a first floor,” Diego Seral, the national police spokesman told radio Onda Regional de Murcia.
🔴 En estos momentos nos encontramos trabajando en el incendio de una discoteca en la zona atalayas.
— Bomberos Murcia (@BomberosMurcia) October 1, 2023
Cerca de 40 efectivos en el lugar
12 vehiculos pic.twitter.com/eX2NpyRR9j
Video footage released by the city’s firefighting brigade shows the firefighters holding a long hose approaching bright orange flames inside the venue, walking between bar tables that still have drinks placed on top of them.
“Emergency services are still hard at work to put out the fire that occurred in the Teatre nightclub,” the city’s town hall said, adding it “deeply regrets” the accident and offering condolences to those affected.
Four others were injured in the blaze, two women aged 22 and 25 years old and two men in their forties, all suffering from smoke inhalation.
The mayor of Murcia, Jose Ballesta, announced three days of mourning.
He said more than 40 firefighters and 12 emergency vehicles were attending the scene.
Forty people were injured in 2017 in a packed nightclub on Spain’s holiday island of Tenerife when a floor collapsed.
The injured were from countries including France, Britain, Romania and Belgium.
And in 1990, 43 people died in a fire at a nightclub in Spain’s northeastern city of Zaragoza.
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