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MADRID (AP) — At least 10 people died and others were injured in a blaze at a nursing home near Zaragoza in northeastern Spain, before firefighters managed to extinguish the flames, local authorities said Friday.
The alarm was raised just before 5 a.m. on Friday in Villafranca de Ebro, about 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the city of Zaragoza. Two people remained in critical condition, officials said.
The cause of the fire was not yet known.
Local media said 82 people had been living in the Jardines De Villafranca nursing home, which focused on treating people with dementia and mental health issues.
Jorge Azcón, head of the regional government of Aragon — which includes Villafranca de Ebro, population 840 — told reporters outside the nursing home that an investigation would be opened into the cause of the fire.
The immediate priority was to transfer the remaining uninjured residents to other facilities, he said, including one in the city of Huesca, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) away.
Volga Ramírez, mayor of Villafranca de Ebro, told reporters that intense smoke from the blaze was likely responsible for the deaths.
“It is due to smoke inhalation,” Ramírez said, “not because they were burned.” She said that the remaining residents of the center had been safely evacuated.
Zaragoza fire chief Eduardo Sánchez told reporters that firefighters had extinguished the blaze that came from one room of the center. A fire door had prevented the blaze from spreading to the other half of the building, he said.
On X, formerly Twitter, Azcón announced that all government events in the Aragon region were cancelled for the day.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X that he was “shocked by the tragedy" and expressed condolences to the victims.
The fire took place just weeks after devastating flash floods in the Spanish region of Valencia killed more than 200 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The floods were the worst natural disaster in Spain's recent history.