The nightclubs that caught fire in Murcia last October 2023, causing the death of 13 people, occupied the same industrial warehouse that was divided into two. The technical engineer who drafted this division project, Carlos José Fuentes, has assured today before the judge investigating the case that the sectorization was in accordance with the current regulations in all aspects and that, in fact, it was adapted according to the requirements. What the Murcia City Council was doing to keep those businesses open, on which, however, in January 2022 it issued an order to cease activity that it ratified in October of that year, a year before the fire, and that was never executed. .
Fuentes has testified as a witness in the procedure opened for 13 possible reckless homicides as a result of this fire, and has done so for more than two hours, in which he has reiterated the adequacy of the project, which consisted of “sectorizing” the warehouse who occupied the party rooms so that “one room, another, or both at the same time” could function, as he told journalists upon leaving the courts. The technician has insisted that the work and all security measures complied with current regulations and that “everything that the City Council has required at all times for the business to be open” was presented.
The project to divide the rooms, he said, was carried out between 2017 and 2019, although it was not until June of that year when the owners of Theater They formally requested the city council for a license to carry out the works. The place, however, was already divided on that date and the nightclub Fonda Milagros It had been operating for at least two months before, organizing parties that were advertised on social networks. The Administration took a while to respond: it did so at the end of 2020 with an inspection of the premises, and it spoke out again in September 2021 with a request to Theater, before issuing, in January 2022, the order to cease activity, which was ratified in October of that year, although it was never executed, according to the chronology included in the municipal file. In parallel to this procedure, the nightclub initiated a file in March 2022 to legalize its situation, which was still open on the date of the fire.
The engineer has also defended that all the security systems fit within the law, something that the lawyers representing the families of the fatal victims of the fire strongly reject. For the lawyer José Manuel Muñoz Ortín, the most flagrant failure is that of the emergency exits of Fonda Milagros, where the 13 victims died, and which could not be used because they did not face the street, but rather communicated with Theater, where researchers locate the origin of the fire. In his opinion, this location of the doors is illegal because they did not communicate with a safe place, as established by the regulations. Lawyer Pedro López Graña has also focused on “the apparently very anomalous situation” of the electrical installation: the nightclubs did not have any supply company and were supplied with an external generator. According to the engineer’s statement, the project for dividing the rooms did have a proper electrical installation, although the clubs had not had it since 2016.
The engineer has also defended the legality of the two nightclubs being able to share supply facilities because, despite the “sectorization”, it continued to be a single warehouse, with a single owner with the contracts in his name. “It’s like El Corte Inglés, which manages its facilities in a complete building with different establishments on each of the floors,” he told reporters. In his statement before the judge as an investigator, the owner of Fonda Milagros confirmed that he paid rent for the use of the room to the owner of Theater, to whom he also paid different amounts for electricity and water supplies. Both his lawyers and those of the fatal victims consider that the engineer should appear as an investigator and not as a witness in this case, since they think that he is directly responsible for the fire due to safety failures, although the judge investigating the case does not has taken this measure for the moment and only maintains as accused the three people responsible for the rooms, in addition to the organizer of the party that was held in the first location that night and the owner of the cold fire machine that investigators consider caused the fire.
The investigation into this fire will take a new step tomorrow, when several experts hired by the families of the victims are expected to enter the burned nightclubs to gather their own evidence about the event.
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