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Fire kills 14 at German workshop for disabled | Fire kills 14 at German workshop for disabled |
(35 minutes later) | |
At least 14 people have died and "a large number" injured in a major fire at a workshop for disabled people in south-western Germany, reports say. | |
Firefighters fought to rescue people and extinguish the blaze at the centre run by the Caritas charity in Titisee-Neustadt, in the Black Forest. | |
The workshop is believed to have employed about 120 disabled people. | |
The cause of the fire is not yet known, but local media reports that there may have been an explosion in a store room. | |
The centre is used for woodwork and metalwork, for which highly-flammable materials and liquids are often used. | |
'Devastating' | |
The blaze occurred at about 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) in the two-storey modern building, located some 40km (25 miles) east of the city of Freiburg. | |
The entire building was in flames, local TV reported, and smoke was still billowing out more than an hour after the fire started. | |
About 50 people are reckoned to have been in the building at the time. | |
Firefighters wore breathing apparatus as they tried to reach those who were trapped inside. | |
"We can tell you that we have 14 dead. The process of identification is ongoing," local police spokesman Karl-Heinz Schmid told rolling news channel N24. | |
"We also have a large number of injured who have been taken to hospital." | |
The centre is run by the Catholic Church's aid organisation Caritas, and the town's mayor Armin Hinterseh said the buildings were quite new. | |
"It is devastating. We now have to find out how it happened," Mr Hinterseh told the local daily Badische Zeitung. |