Blaze in squat in suburb of Spain's Barcelona kills at least two

MADRID: A blaze in an abandoned warehouse believed to have been occupied by scores of squatters in a suburb of the Spanish city of Barcelona has killed at least two people and injured 17, emergency services said on Thursday.

Firefighters said they were battling to put the fire out.

"Twenty-six units of firefighters are working on the blaze in Badalona, constantly evaluating the risk of collapse of the building. The fire's intensity is lower, but it's not yet under control," firefighters said on their Twitter account.

It was not immediately clear how many people were in the warehouse in the suburb of Badalona when the fire started overnight but media said that many immigrants often slept there.

The La Vanguardia newspaper quoted Keita, a 36-year-old Senegalese and Moises, a Moroccan man, as saying that more than 150 people were sleeping in the building.

The Badalona mayor, Xavier Garcia Albiol, said on Twitter that the firemen could not enter the warehouse because it could collapse.

"There could have been about 200 people (in the warehouse)," La Vanguardia quoted the mayor as saying, adding the number of people who stayed there fluctuated from day to day.

"It was a squat which we had for years known could end in tragedy."

La Vanguardia quoted firemen David Borrell chief as saying that they had rescued 30 people and that others had left by themselves.

The two bodies were found early on Thursday, the firefighters said.

Emergency services treated 17 injured people, five of them with serious injuries.