Two young people, also minors, aged 16 and 17, spent the afternoon in the burned storage room in Manlleu (Barcelona) due to a fire. The two teenagers told their loved ones that they were also in the small room on Monday afternoon, on the roof of the apartment block on Manlleu Street, where the tragedy occurred. Both left half an hour before the tragedy, according to sources close to them, and found out around midnight that their friends had died due to the fire.
The girls said that they always met in the same storage room, where they hung out. It was a regular place for the neighbors, who lived right in front of it and explained to this newspaper that other people also came and went, who also spent the night there sporadically. On Monday, the two young women went to the storage room after five in the afternoon, and there they met their friends.
In the place yesterday the remains of what was in the storage room could still be seen: two mattresses, a plastic chair, and lying on the floor, a bottle of a gas called CDL Sixth Wave. The floor was black, stained with soot and ashes, but there were no clear signs of a live flame on the walls. At the entrance, there was still a second gas bottle, which was also still in perfect condition. The Mossos rule out that the consumption of this gas is related to the causes of the fire, which they consider accidental.
The girls explained to those around them that the young people consumed gas in that small room, but they denied that the majority of them smoked there. The main hypothesis used by the Mossos and the Firefighters is that the fire started with the burning of a mattress, located on the other side of the small labyrinth and that a combustion process began there that trapped the boys, between 14 and 17 years old, leaving them no room to escape. The victims died of asphyxiation, according to police sources, although autopsies will determine the exact causes of death. The Catalan police maintain that it was an accident.
The two young women, one from Centelles and the second from Torelló, left around eight-thirty in the afternoon from their usual meeting place with the group of friends. The Firefighters received the first emergency calls shortly after nine at night, as there was a fire in the block. The specialists ran, landing by landing, until they reached five floors, and they evicted all the neighbors.
although they thought that there was probably no one there. They first inspected the left wing, and then ran to the right wing. In that small area, with about twenty storage rooms, without electricity, without water and without ventilation, they found the young people. Three were already dead, and two still had vital signs, but they died immediately, according to sources who participated in the rescue.
The storage rooms of the apartment block, with more than 40 homes, had been abandoned for some time. Various people came and went there, and despite the attempts of some neighbors to padlock it to prevent further access, they always found the padlocks broken. Many of these rooms accumulated furniture, appliances, furniture and garbage. A situation similar to what they suffered with the main door of the entire block of flats, which was always open.
In addition, the agents found an added problem: several residents of the apartment block had their electricity supply with illegal outlets, which they considered posed a danger. Endesa sources assure this newspaper that the situation is being analyzed, together with the Manlleu City Council. A problem that aggravates the situation in a building in which the police also found bars and an accumulation of objects and dirt in some areas.
Laa remains open to clarify the definitive causes that led to the fire that claimed the lives of five young people. The city council declared three days of mourning, and yesterday held a minute of silence in which the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, participated.
