Barcelona fire: Deadly blaze engulfs squatters' warehouse

A fire has engulfed an abandoned warehouse occupied by dozens of people in a Barcelona suburb, killing at least three and injuring about 20 others.

Many of the squatters using the three-storey warehouse in Badalona were migrants, who left behind belongings.

Firefighters have found three bodies and some of the injured are in a critical condition. The blaze has been put out, but the building is unstable.

Some survivors jumped from the roof to escape the flames.

More than 30 people were rescued from the roof, Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser reports.

The Badalona district mayor, Xavier Garcia Albiol, said at least 60 people had managed to flee the blaze.

It is not clear what caused the fire, which began at about 21:00 (20:00 GMT) on Wednesday in the industrial area in north-eastern Barcelona, although some survivors said a burning candle had started it.

Seven survivors are being treated for serious injuries in hospital and at least 12 others have minor injuries, medical sources say.

Mamadou Dieye, a Senegalese man interviewed by the daily El País, said he had been "zero centimetres away from death" on the first floor, but had managed to smash a window and escape down a fire service ladder.

He had been suffocating from the smoke with a friend's sister, and now fears that she died in the building.

He said more than 100 migrants - from Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria - had been staying in the warehouse, with many highly flammable possessions, such as mattresses and makeshift wooden partitions.

Cadena Ser says survivors are now in a neighbouring warehouse, traumatised by the blaze, and complain of having lost what little they had, including vital documents.

David Borrell, a senior firefighter in the Spanish port city, said there was a risk the warehouse could cave in, so his teams were proceeding very cautiously in the debris.

There have been squatters in the abandoned warehouse for at least seven years, the Catalan authorities say.

Mayor Albiol said the survivors would be given temporary accommodation, but the Catalan government would have to get involved in the housing question, "because in many cases here we're talking about people whose status is irregular".

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