Catalonia fire claims 2 lives, injures 17

OVIEDO, Spain

A warehouse housing around 150 people, mainly foreign nationals, went up in flames late Wednesday night in a city near Barcelona, Spain, killing at least two people and injuring 17 others, six of them critically.

Officials in the Catalonian city of Badalona warned the death toll could increase once emergency services access the building. The fire was controlled around 9:30 a.m. (0830GMT) Thursday, but firefighters feared the building might collapse.

The cause of the fire, in what was reportedly a former paint factory, is still unknown.

Pere Aragones, the Catalonian vice president told media the building had been occupied by “vulnerable populations” for more than a decade. Most of the estimated 100-200 residents of the building appear to be of foreign nationality.

Catalan Interior Minister Miquel Samper told press there was a “language barrier and they [residents] haven’t given us information about what’s going on.”

In a video filmed by one of the building’s residents, which was shared with Catalan daily La Vanguardia, a survivor described the scene in fluent Spanish and criticized firefighters for not doing anything for 30 minutes after arriving.

Other neighbors who witnessed the scene described how residents in the building jumped out of windows to escape the flames.

“They tried to escape the way they could,” a witness, Javier Checa, told Spanish daily elDiario. “They were screaming for help. It was horrible.”

Julieta Perucca, deputy director of Shift, a housing rights organization, told Anadolu Agency that thousands of families and individuals in Spain live in dangerous conditions.

“The Spanish government must take urgent measures to secure the right to housing, including for migrants who are so often persecuted, discriminated against and excluded from any other housing options, which force them to live in life-threatening situations.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the fire “a tragedy” and said on Thursday morning that the situation continued to worry him.

“I’m so sorry about the loss of human life and appreciate the excellent job of the emergency services, who have saved dozens of people from the flames.”