DW News · Feb 17, 2026 · Collected from RSS
At least five young people were killed in a fire that broke out a five-story apartment block in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region.
At least five young people died and five others sustained minor injuries in a fire at an apartment building in northeastern Spain's Catalonia region, the fire service said on Tuesday. The fire service said in a statement that the blaze broke out Monday evening in a storage room on the top floor of a five-story building in Manlleu, a town around 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Barcelona. The cause of the blaze has not been identified and officials are looking into it. The five people killed also didn't live in the building, police said. What do we know so far about the blaze? The fire service received a call after several residents reported a fire on the top floor of a building and smoke in the stairwell. Upon arrival, firefighters found that the building had been completely evacuated. After extinguishing the fire, firefighters located the first victim, who suffered a cardiac arrest. Firefighters expedited their search and found four more bodies in the storage room. Their ages have not yet been determined because they are still awaiting full identification. However, it is certain that they were all young people, some of whom may have been minors, according to the Spanish news agency EFE's sources. "For reasons unknown, the people inside were unable to get out" of the storage room, according to the fire service. Despite the intervention of firefighters and ambulances, "nothing could be done to save their lives," it added. Edited by: Roshni Majumdar