Three days have already passed since the tragedy that devastated the Region of Murcia, when a cruel fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday in a leisure establishment and claimed the lives of 13 people. Thirteen tragedies immersed in a pain that will never heal and many questions that will be “complicated and long to reveal,” according to sources from the state Security Forces and the TSJ of Murcia. For the moment, the Investigative Court 3 of the capital, in accordance with the distribution rules, took over the proceedings opened this Tuesday for thirteen crimes of reckless homicide. Summary secrecy has been declared.
The Region is a real “hotbed” of hypotheses, doubts and conflicting opinions between the administration and those responsible for the affected premises. Everyone regrets and now asks how it is possible that the establishments remained open despite the closure order that the City Council decreed on October 11, 2022 and that ended up being unfulfilled. The first and only conclusion, for the moment, is that the order ended up in limbo. There are those who go further and declare that it is a case of “consensual irregularities.”
The decree of the former Urban Planning Councilor of the Murcia City Council, Andrés Guerrero (PSOE), to which the newspaper La Verdad de Murcia has been able to access exclusively, ordered the Inspection of the Works and Activities Service of the Consistory to “tour visit” the Teatre de Las Atalayas nightclub and, “in the event that it has not been carried out voluntarily, it will proceed to forced execution through the establishment's seal.” This was stated in the document that the then head of the department sent to this municipal area and which is dated October 11, 2022.
The newspaper concludes that this order was “non-compliant in view of the content of the report of the inspector who was in charge of undertaking said verification. This record, issued on October 21, includes that, “in response to the order to cease the activity and the warning of forced execution – without therefore making reference to the necessary seal –, once contacted with the owner – of the aforementioned premises –, they declare and provide justification for the presentation of the technical documentation that they needed to process the legalization.”
Sources consulted by La Vanguardia insist that "no one from the Murcia City Council is capable of offering an official explanation about what happened later with this report." The local newspaper confirms that Andrés Guerrero “was not able to explain anything about this theory yesterday” and only said that “that is what we are investigating.”
The vice mayor of Murcia, Rebeca Pérez, stated yesterday on TVE that the Government team was “dismayed” to learn that the nightclubs were operating without a license and that they had failed to comply with the cessation and closure decree. Furthermore, she said that they did not understand “how that traceability of the file did not continue. We do not know why that closure and seal order was not given, as established in the decree signed by the councilor at the time, Andrés Guerrero,” she said.
As if this were not enough, yesterday it was learned that Teatre, without a license and with a cessation and closure order on top of it, satisfactorily passed a municipal health inspection in March 2023, which corroborates that “everyone knew that the place was working.” ”. The document prepared by the Veterinary Services of the City Council reveals that an inspection had taken place in February due to alleged sanitary irregularities that were resolved in a second inspection.
It should be remembered that the fatalities were found on the first floor of the Fonda Milagros premises, attached to Teatre and separated by a plasterboard wall, which did not exist “administratively” for the City Council, because it never approved the division of the Teatre nightclub into two. . Both establishments operated before the City Council under the company Teatre S.L., with a single license for the authorities.
Another question revolves around how the devastating fire started. Based on the statements of the witnesses, the National Police investigators are working with the hypothesis that the fire originated by chance, but derived from some recklessness in one of the three affected premises.
The possibility of a short circuit has lost strength based on these testimonies, which agreed that, once the fire broke out, the light took a few minutes to go out, which seems incompatible with an electrical failure. However, preliminary hypotheses about the origin of the fire must be contrasted by visual inspection and field work. At the moment the area is being inspected and the testimonies circulating on social networks are being reviewed.
José Luis Gómez Calvo, expert in security of activities and events and author of a technical report on the Madrid Arena tragedy when an avalanche killed five girls at a Halloween party almost eleven years ago, considers that “the irregularities in “The two establishments go beyond the fact that both were open even though they lacked a license.”
In exclusive statements to the EFE agency, he points out that "these irregularities were known and consented to by both the current municipal government of the PP and the previous one, of the PSOE." He insists that when “the owners of the premises decided to divide them with plasterboard they left the two establishments with “null” evacuation measures.
This expert assures that “the compartmentalization of the premises through the false ceiling turned them into a “mousetrap” for the clients, especially for those who were in the box - where the highest number of deaths occurred - because they could not escape. of the “labyrinth” that led to the exit.” He insists there were no “safe evacuation conditions.” And the worst thing is that, as he said, “he indulged himself.”
