Fourteen people have been killed after a fire broke out at a workshop for disabled people in Germany, according to local news reports. Seven people were also injured in the fire, which occurred in the small town of Titisee-Neustadt in the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany.
Karl-Heinz Schmid, a spokesman for police in the nearby city of Freiburg, told rolling news channel N24: "We can tell you that we have 14 dead. The process of identification is ongoing."
The fire broke out around 2:00pm (1300 GMT), according to media reports and had still not been extinguished nearly two hours later.
Police were unable to determine the cause of the fire which broke out in a workshop housing. It provides employment in metal and wood processing and electrical assembly.
DPA quoted a source as saying there had been an explosion in a storage room.
It was still unclear whether chemicals were stored in the room, but the workshop activities include the treatment of wood.
Around 120 people with intellectual or multiple disabilities work at the center.
The center, which is run by the Catholic Church’s Caritas organization, was developed 30 years ago and was renovated in 2002.
Markus Straub, a spokesman for local firefighters, said there was no immediate information on why the building in Titisee-Neustadt, a town in the Black Forest near the city of Freiburg, caught fire early Monday afternoon.
"It will take days to investigate what caused the fire," he said.
The town's mayor, Armin Hinterseh, said the center's buildings were quite new. "It is devastating. We now have to find out how it happened," he was quoted as saying by local daily Badische Zeitung.
Baden-Wuerttemberg state governor Winfried Kretschmann rushed to the scene, his office said.
Sunday 26 November 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/9703421/14-killed-in-fire-at-German-workshop.html
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