Spain: Survivor speaks after Badalona fire kills at least three

Mamadou Dieye was talking to his family back in Senegal when he heard shouts of distress downstairs in his building in Badalona, Spain on Wednesday night. Smoke quickly followed the screams, and in the ensuing panic Dieye watched in horror as several fellow squatters plummeted from three storeys high to escape the fire billowing below.

After seeing a man hit the ground and stop moving, Dieye thought he could have been dead, he told the Associated Press on Thursday hours after a fire had engulfed the abandoned industrial complex where he and over 100 other African migrants lived in precarious conditions.

Authorities for north east Spain said that firefighters had confirmed three deaths while continuing their search in a building whose roof partially collapsed when a fire raged through it Wednesday night.Around 20 people had to be treated by medics, including three people in critical condition at local hospitals.Dieye, 43, said that unlike most of those living in the building, he has his Spanish residency and work permits after spending 20 years in the European country.

He had been forced to give up a room he was renting in Barcelona and come to the squat in the neighbouring town of Badalona after losing his job as a cook, he said. While he said he just got out past the flames by taking the stairs instead of leaping through the windows, he said that a woman he was trying to help succumbed to the smoke.

He feared for her life. Most of the injured were being treated for trauma after they jumped from the building, emergency coordinator Francisco Tebar told Spanish state broadcaster TVE.Catalonia’s acting regional president, Pere Aragonès, said that around 60 people have been accounted for so far, but that the group of buildings could had been occupied by more than 100 squatters.

Work was underway to fully extinguish the flames and stabilise the structure to safely access it, Aragonés told TVE.Several drones and sniffer dogs were being used to look for anyone else who might be trapped in unstable parts of the complex.The regional chief said that many occupants were believed to be in Spain without a legal residence permit and had left the scene without being attending to my medical or support staff.

(Image Credit: AP)