A fire in an abandoned industrial warehouse in Spain, where it”s believed up to 200 migrants lived, left at least 17 injured Wednesday evening, two of whom are in critical condition.
It’s feared that more people could be trapped inside.
The fire started around 9:00 p.m. CEST in the Catalan city of Badalona, a city of about 200,000 people just north of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast. Between 100 and 200 migrants are believed to have been squatting in precarious conditions there, according to municipal authorities.
“We located 60 people, but many came out through the back windows and left. Maybe more than a hundred came out,” said the mayor of Badalona, Xavier Garcia Albiol.
“We hope that there are no casualties or as few as possible,” he added.
More than twenty teams of firefighters have been hard at work to extinguish the fire, which was so powerful there was little chance of finding people alive, said the chief of the operation David Borrell.
Images broadcast by local televisions or on social networks showed tall flames coming out of the building, with several individuals hanging from the facade to try and escape.
“It is impossible to know if there are more people inside,” as the site remains inaccessible to firefighters due to the intensity of the flames and the risk of collapse, he explained.
The head of the Catalan health authority, Alba Vergés, said 17 people had been injured, two of whom are in critical condition and four others who were in a serious condition, after jumping from the building to escape the fire.
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