At least seven people were killed on Sunday after a fire broke out in a nightclub in southeastern Spain, the authorities said, adding that the number of victims could rise.
The police and firefighters in Murcia, Spain, rushed to the Teatre nightclub after receiving reports of a fire around 6 a.m. Sunday.
The fire most likely broke out on Teatre’s ground floor, a spokesman for the Spanish National Police said. At least four people — two women, 22 and 25, and two men, 41 and 45 — were wounded in the fire after inhaling smoke, according to Murcia’s emergency service.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze by midmorning before entering the building to try to find survivors, according to the emergency service. The authorities also set up a relief center to provide support for family members and others affected, Spanish police said in a statement.
Spanish authorities did not immediately indicate a cause for the fire. Investigative teams had been dispatched to the area in an effort to determine the fire’s origins, the National Police spokesman, Diego Seral, told the country’s public broadcaster, RTVE.
Murcia’s city government declared three days of official mourning to honor those killed in the fire, its mayor, José Ballesta, wrote on social media.
