2023-10-02 21:45:57
Marta Hernández, 62 years old, arrived in Murcia in 2008. She was preceded by Miriam Montealegre, her sister-in-law, four years younger, who two years earlier began to make her way in the city, where she arrived encouraged by another relative who, like so many Latin Americans, came to Spain in search of work and prosperity.
Miriam was waiting this Monday, anguished, tearful, broken by pain, for the official notification of Marta’s death; that of her nephews, Sergio and Eric, and that of the latter’s partner, Orfilia. “We want to know, we have no hope left and we are clear about it. “They were swallowed up by the flames but we want to know,” he said at the doors of the police headquarters of the Murcian capital, where he went to leave hairbrushes, toothbrushes and razor blades belonging to his relatives so that they could be compared. the genetic material. And thus determine that theirs with four of the eight bodies that still remain to be identified of the 13 found among the ashes and rubble of the Fonda Milagros nightclub.
More information
Eric Torres went, with family and friends, to celebrate his 30th birthday at the nightclub. He, along with his partner, lived with his mother, Marta, in the El Progreso neighborhood of the Murcian capital. Miriam, between sobs, guesses that she shared a flat with her other brother, her nephew Sergio, in the center of the city. On Sunday morning Miriam received a call from her son, Walter, at half past six. “Mommy, go see if Sergio is in the room,” she recalled her telling him. “I went to his room and he wasn’t there. When I told my son, he started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he only managed to tell me that the flames had swallowed him.” The flames, the fire not only swallowed Sergio. Also to Marta, Eric and Orfilia.
He knows that she could have been another of those 13 victims of the fire. Sergio himself urged him to go to the party: “Come on, go out and have fun,” he told him. But she was not in the mood. “I have gone to birthdays other times. They always celebrated them. Both Eric, Marta and Sergio. It was the custom. The whole family and friends gathered together but this time she didn’t want to… maybe it was a premonition”, she predicts, as if wanting to celebrate it. Seconds later, he realizes that she did not, but almost all of the family she has in Murcia, did not leave the Fonda alive.
Friends of those who died in the fires at the Fonda Milagros and Teatre nightclubs in Murcia gathered this Monday at the doors of these establishments in support of the families of the victims and lit candles in their memory. Marcial Guillén (EFE)
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe
Marta was hospitalized and in the care of a man. Sergio was a waiter. And Eric, delivery man. They will never return to their jobs, those in which they tried to prosper and help the family they still support in Nicaragua. Marta’s other two daughters, Alejandra and Ivania, traveled this Sunday from Zaragoza and France upon learning of the events. Their idea is to repatriate the bodies and, to do this, they trust in having the help of the administration. In any case, before that, they have to wait for the bodies to be identified, something that, according to police sources, can take several days.
Miriam spent the entire Sunday at the Sports Palace, set up to receive family members and provide them with psychological care. This Monday, she spent the morning wandering from the police headquarters to her apartment, looking for belongings that could have Sergio’s genetic makeup so that her body could be identified. She has also gone from her apartment to that of her sister-in-law, trying to collect any element that would speed up the procedures.
The Palacio de los Deportes has also been the place chosen this Monday to celebrate a rally of the Latin community in Murcia. Colombians, Nicaraguans and Ecuadorians joined in a march that later moved to the street where the Fonda Milagros is located, or what remains of it. Representatives of the Colombianos Unidos association have placed flowers and candles in the vicinity of the fire, an area that remains cordoned off and that the firefighters have not abandoned until Monday night, after 36 hours of uninterrupted work.
More information
The relatives and friends concentrated in the place defined La Fonda Milagros as “a wonderful family”, the “balm” that has helped people who came to Murcia “to fight for their dreams.” “That inn welcomed us all, it gave us joy,” said one of the spokespersons, to which another of them defined the nightclub as “our home, that little piece of our land where we brought so much joy.” Those gathered wanted to dedicate a round of applause to the victims, their family and friends, and also “to the family of La Fonda Milagros.”
In the last few hours, the work of firefighters has focused on shoring up the buildings affected by the fire, given that their structures collapsed inward. This has prevented the Judicial Police from entering the premises until the end of this Monday. To fully guarantee your safety, and given the risk of collapse, the firefighters have installed a sensor system capable of detecting movements in the structure of the buildings of just two millimeters, which would activate an alarm that warns the agents so that they can leave the place.
Also at the end of this Monday, the search for the 15 people whose disappearances had been reported was concluded: thirteen of them would correspond to the deceased, another was located by their relatives on Monday morning and the last She was also found by her relatives in the afternoon of the same day, as confirmed by the Government Delegation. In both cases, these people had left the nightclub before the fire occurred.
Grid
Due to the poor condition of the buildings, the search for the bodies has been carried out through a system known as a grid. This consists of dividing the search surface into small plots with a separation of approximately one and a half meters. Firefighters dig in the center of each grid in which approximately 1.20 meters of debris accumulates from the roof of the nightclub that collapsed due to the fire. In this grid search, firefighters have not found any bodies, although team sources do not rule out that there may be fragmented remains due to the impact of the collapse. Therefore, they will proceed to clear the entire surface in search of any signs.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
#relatives #victims #tragedy #Fonda #Milagros #nightclub #Sergios #room #flames #swallowed #Spain