The Murcia firefighters had serious difficulties accessing the Teatre nightclub through its back emergency door the day a tragic fire in that room and the adjacent Fonda Milagros caused the death of 13 people, since the exit had its internal side “an accordion fence closed at two levels with padlocks.”
This is stated in the report that the Fire Fighting and Rescue Service (SEIS) of the Murcia City Council has sent to the court investigating the tragic event that took place in the early hours of October 1. According to the fire brigade report, to which EFE has had access, it was around 7:07 a.m. on October 1, approximately one hour after the fire started, when the officers tried to access the Teatre nightclub on foot. its back, through an alley in which “there are numerous obstacles and accumulated belongings.”
In that alley, firefighters had to “force two doors blocked with chains and padlocks, which first give access to the emergency back door of the Golden nightclub.” That room shares the same warehouse as the two damaged nightclubs, but upon entering it, the firefighters verified that the fire had not affected it, but that it was just collapsed due to smoke.
Moving along the same corridor, the firefighters later arrived “at one of the emergency doors of the Teatre nightclub”, where they were forced to force it open “using the halligan tool” composed of a claw, a blade and a beak that It is usually used to force open doors.
According to the report, on the inside of that emergency exit there was “an accordion gate closed at two levels with padlocks,” so it was not used to evacuate the nightclub, which was evacuated through its main door.
However, none of the fatalities were located in Teatre, but they all appeared in the attached premises, Fonda Milagros, as witnessed by the report, which sets the time at 9:31 at which the first fatality was located. “in one of the lofts” of wooden forging of the nightclub where the booths were located.
At 9:35, three more victims were found in the same place, and it was at that moment that it was decided to enable the Sports Palace to care for the families of those affected, according to the report.
Another three deceased were found at 10:14 a.m. in a place very close to where the first four were and from that moment on, according to the report, “the main action strategy was established to carry out recovery work for the people located, keeping the cooling and extinction tasks in the background.”
The victims are appearing gradually: an eighth deceased was located at 12:58 p.m. in the same area as the previous ones; three minutes later the ninth body appears and at 1:05 p.m., the tenth and eleventh.
The report details that “it was very difficult” to locate the deceased, “since they were half buried by the remains of rubble, beams and other belongings, in addition to blending in with the blackened surroundings.”
The two remaining victims were located at 1:30 p.m. on the ground floor, “covered in remains of rubble, caused by the collapse caused on the upper floor of the wooden floor” and in a position “compatible with a fall” from the reserved, according to firefighters.
However, the search efforts were not concluded until 4:08 p.m. the next day, October 2, when a person who was still considered missing was located alive. Firefighters did not leave the scene of the fire until 6:15 p.m. that day.