While friends and relatives of the victims wandered around ground zero trying to find an explanation that no one was giving them, the City Council called a press conference yesterday in which it was revealed that the two nightclubs that were set on fire last Sunday morning, with 13 fatalities, they operated without an activity license and with a cease-and-desist order from October 2022. A fact that has already begun to trigger a whole series of questions, the main of which is for what reason the Inspection did not close the two discotheques.
“Teatre and Fonda Milagros, the two premises affected, have opened without authorization since the order to cease activity, which was issued in October 2022”, as explained yesterday by Antonio Navarro (of the PP), the current Councilor for Urban Planning of the City Council of Murcia. The councilor assured that, administratively, the two nightclubs set on fire were one establishment, although the owner erected a plasterboard partition without permission to turn them into two different ones. Fonda Milagros, the place where all the victims died, “did not exist administratively” and, therefore, escaped municipal control.
Teatre had the license to operate as a nightclub with a kitchen, which was granted in 2008, but in 2019 the owner divided the establishment into the two current spaces. “This fragmentation required a new permit, which the company tried to obtain without success”, they indicated. In January 2022, the previous Councilor for Urbanism, the socialist Andrés Guerrero, issued an order to cease activity of the disco because he understood that “the modification of the premises was substantial and required a new license”. On March 8 of the same year, the company presented a legalization project, which has not yet been completed.
In yesterday’s hearing, there was also the previous councilor for Urbanism, Andrés Guerrero (of the PSOE), who defended his diligence when acting in this case. “The documentation presented by the premises did not correspond to what was requested and the Inspection was ordered to check the operation in order to proceed with its closure”, he recalled. In his opinion, “the only person responsible for what has happened is the company which, despite the communications made to close the premises, ignored them”.
The current Councilor for Urbanism, in response to the journalists’ questions, assured that “the Administration was not aware that the nightclubs had been operating since the closure requirement”, almost a year ago. “Without a doubt we had no record that the place was open”, he concluded.
In this regard, voices are already being heard that question the councilor’s version, since “the two premises were constantly advertising on social networks, even when they organized parties attended by minors”. This is explained by Jesús Jiménez, president of the Federation of Hospitality Businesses of Murcia, who assures that “everyone knows that these spaces were open and that the whole city passed through there”. Navarro finally indicated that “there is no file or administrative office in which the breach of the closure order is highlighted”. He adds that “from the City Council they are investigating what happened to this act, which would have a date of October 2022”. He also advanced that the Consistory will act as a private prosecution in the open judicial procedure: “We will appear before the court to act in a private way against those who have breached the cease and desist order”.
Within the immense tragedy, the city has received with joy the confirmation that the five people who were missing after the fire have been found alive. The mayor, José Ballesta, confirmed early yesterday morning that three of them had been located at 7.30am. In the afternoon, the Delegation of the Spanish Government notified that the last of the missing had been found alive.
Firefighters worked throughout the night in the area of ??the fire. Although, apparently, they have not yet allowed access to the Police officers, due to the risk of the building collapsing, which is completely burnt.
The mayor confirmed that the fire originated in the Fonda Milagros nightclub and that it spread towards Teatre, where the customers could be evacuated. He indicated that the firefighters had to make holes in the walls to access the interior due to the impossibility of doing so through the door.
According to all hypotheses, the origin of the disaster could have been a spotlight or, most likely, one of the flares that were lit that night as seen in the videos uploaded to social networks by some attendees.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced yesterday that agents of the scientific police have been sent to Murcia to help in the identification of those killed in the fires in the nightclub area on Sunday. He added that with these tasks the aim is to give “absolute peace of mind” to the victims’ relatives as to who each of the dead is. Regarding the causes of the fire, Grande-Marlaska indicated that it is necessary to let “the investigations follow the appropriate course”, since the inquiries will determine the causes of this “fatal tragedy”.
