Five young people killed in apartment fire in northeast Spain

The fire originated in the storage room of a five-story apartment block in Manlleu

Catalan police have opened an investigation into the cause of the fire (via Reuters)

Five people have died, and five others are injured after a fire broke out in an apartment building in northeastern Spain.

The fire originated in the storage room of a five-story apartment block in Manlleu, a town of 21,000 north of Barcelona, regional authorities in Catalonia said on Monday.

For reasons not yet known, the victims could not escape the attic storage room, authorities said.

What caused the blaze also wasn’t yet known. The victims will be identified later on Tuesday, as some of the bodies were charred.

Catalan police said the five dead were all young people and that they did not live in the building.

Catalonia’s regional leader, Salvador Illa, expressed his condolences for the dead and their families on X, saying he was “deeply saddened by the death of five people.”

Among the injured, four were later released from hospitals while one other didn’t require hospitalisation, emergency services said on Tuesday.

Catalan police have opened an investigation into the cause of the fire. They did not state whether they were looking into the case as a possible homicide.