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Firefighters at work in Murcia: fire disaster in discotheques
Photo: Edu Botella / dpa
The discotheques in Murcia, in southeastern Spain, where 13 people died in a fire on Sunday, did not have a valid operating license. For two of the three burned-out restaurants, an official order to close them had already been in force since the beginning of last year. This is what the councillor in charge of urban planning, Antonio Navarro, told journalists in Murcia .
The city administration will take "emphatic" action against possible responsible parties and act as a plaintiff in the investigation, the politician emphasized. The closure order was therefore valid because of a change to the interiors that was not finally approved.
Navarro said that an appeal against the closure order was rejected in March 2022 and that the company was asked to comply with the decision in October of the same year, but this did not happen.
Cause initially unknown
According to official figures, the fire broke out early Sunday morning killed 13 people and injured 24 people. Murcia's mayor, José Ballesta, declared a three-day mourning. The cause of the fire initially remained unknown. The Spanish National Police launched an investigation. Among the victims, according to the authorities, according to previous findings, are citizens of Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Spain.
In Spain, there had already been several disasters in discotheques in the past. In 2017, for example, 40 people were injured in a crowded discotheque on the holiday island of Fuerteventura when a ceiling collapsed. In 1990, 43 people died in a fire in a discotheque in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza.
aeh/AFP/dpa