Fire in a storage room in northeastern Spain kills five children

The Spanish flag in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

MADRID — A fire broke out in a top-floor storage room at an apartment building in northeastern Spain, killing five children who were trapped inside the room and injuring five other people elsewhere in the building, officials said Tuesday.

The fire started around 9 p.m. Monday in Manlleu, a town of about 21,000 people in the Catalonia region north of Barcelona, and the victims who died were identified as minors who ranged in age from 14 to 17 and who did not live in the building, Catalan police said.

Police were investigating the cause of the fire and the reason why the children were not able to escape the room. Police declined to say whether they were looking into the case as a possible homicide.

Among the injured elsewhere in the building, four were later released from hospitals while one other didn’t require hospitalization, emergency services said.

Catalonia’s regional leader, Salvador Illa, expressed his condolences for the dead and their families on X, saying he was “deeply saddened by the death of five people.”