At least 13 people killed in fire in Spanish discos. Air traffic between Italy and Libya resumes

Dozens of people were still partying hard around 6 a.m. when dance floors and bars suddenly turned into a flashpoint: at least 13 people were killed in a fire at a popular nightlife center with three discos in Murcia, southeastern Spain. The regional emergency service said on Sunday that at least four people were injured. “We are all devastated,” Murcia Mayor José Ballesta told reporters. He declared three days of mourning as firefighters continued to search the rubble for victims. Several people were still missing. The authorities therefore did not rule out that the number of victims would increase.

Videos published in the media and on social networks show how the flames shot meters high from the roof of the “Teatre” discotheque before sunrise. You see dozens of people wandering around on the street in front of the restaurant. According to initial findings, the flames broke out in one of the three discos located there and quickly spread to the other bars, according to official information.

The cloud of smoke from the Las Atalayas shopping and entertainment center, just outside Murcia, could be seen for miles, state television channel RTVE reported. According to official information, it was already after nine o’clock when the approximately forty firefighters deployed were able to extinguish the last flames and start looking for victims. In the nearby Sports Palace of Murcia, the city set up a care center where disco guests and relatives of the victims, dozens of whom rushed to the scene of the accident, received psychological support, among other things.

For some, this help was particularly necessary. Jairo, whose daughter was missing, was still plagued by an agonizing uncertainty early in the afternoon. “The whole family is here, we are all very nervous,” the father complained, almost in tears, in an interview with the reporter of the radio station “Cadena Ser” and other media. “We want to know what happened, even if it is the worst news. But they don’t tell us anything.”

“Great efforts are still being made to find the missing people,” Mayor Ballesta explains. He tried to give the desperate relatives some hope: “More and more families are currently entering family care who do not know where their loved ones are. But of course it could also be that they are in other places.”

Shortly after the mayor said these words, the emergency services reported the discovery of bodies number eight to 13 after 1 p.m. And the search continued.

The quake quickly spread beyond the borders of the popular holiday region, which is still visited by many tourists from home and abroad in late summer, and reached the Moncloa government palace in Madrid. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his “affection and solidarity” with the victims and relatives of the “tragedy” on

The cause and exact location of the fire outbreak were initially unknown. The investigation has begun, National Police spokesman Diego Seral said. The identities of the victims were initially not released.

But one thing is certain: it was the worst disco fire in Spain in more than thirty years. In 1990, 43 people died in a fire at the ‘Flying’ dance bar in Zaragoza. The only worse result occurred in 1983 at the Alcalá 20 discotheque in Madrid: 81 people died in the flames a few days before Christmas Eve. (sda/dpa/cpf)