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Al Etihad
10-05-2025
- Climate
- Al Etihad
Thousands in Spain confined indoors for hours by toxic fumes
10 May 2025 17:56 MADRID (AFP)Spanish authorities told more than 160,000 people near Barcelona to stay indoors for nearly seven hours on Saturday, after a fire at an industrial warehouse released a toxic cloud of chlorine over a wide blaze, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru just south of Barcelona, started at dawn on Saturday in a warehouse storing pool cleaning products, the regional fire service protection services instructed people to stay inside and close the windows, before lifting the restrictions around noon."The lockdown is being lifted," Catalonia's interior minister, Nuria Parlon, announced at a press conference just after 12:15 pm (1015 GMT).Because some harmful particles could remain in the air, he urged children and those with health conditions to remain indoors, and cautioned against exercising outdoors for the also urged residents to remain alert, saying that new shelter-in-place orders might be announced in specific areas, depending on the winds and the movement of the toxic at-risk area stretched across five local districts along the coast, from Vilanova i la Geltru to the village of Calafell, near Tarragona."No casualties" were reported, the fire service said on X on Saturday morning, adding that it had deployed a large number of units to bring the fire under said it was "monitoring the column (of gas) caused by the blaze for changes and for its toxic levels".The authorities closed roads in the area and shut train stations to prevent people approaching the affected area."It is very difficult for chlorine to catch fire but when it does so it is very hard to put it out," warehouse owner Jorge Vinuales Alonso told local radio station said the cause of the fire might have been a lithium battery. Vilanova mayor Juan Luis Ruiz Lopez told public television TVE that authorities expected that, with the fire being put out, "this toxic cloud will start to dissipate and we can lift the measures currently imposed".
India Today
10-05-2025
- Climate
- India Today
Toxic chlorine cloud after fire forces thousands to stay indoors in Spain
Around 160,000 people in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region were warned to stay inside on Saturday after a fire at an industrial estate caused a toxic cloud of chlorine over a wide area, emergency services blaze at a swimming pool cleaning products company started at 2.20 a.m. (0020 GMT) in Vilanova i la Geltru, a town 48 kilometres (30 miles) south of Barcelona and caused a huge plume of chlorine smoke over the you are in the zone that is affected do not leave your home or your place of work," the Civil Protection service said on social media site X. No one has been hurt in the fire, Catalan emergency services said on Saturday, but residents in five towns were sent a message on their mobile phones telling them to remain inside."It is very difficult for chlorine to catch fire but when it does so it is very hard to put it out," the owner of the industrial property, Jorge Vinuales Alonso, told local radio station said the cause of the fire might have been a lithium which were due to pass through the area were held up, roads were blocked and other events were fire was under control, Civil Protection spokesperson Joan Ramon Cabello told the TVE television Watch
