Fire at German workshop kills 14

A fire broke out yesterday at a workshop for disabled people in southwestern Germany, killing 14 and injuring at least six others, authorities said.

Markus Straub, spokesman for local firefighters, said there was no immediate information on why the building in Titisee- Neustadt, a town in the Black Forest near the city of Freiburg, caught fire.

The injured all required medical assistance, but Straub had no detailed information on how severe their injuries were.

The centre employs 120 people with either mental or physical disabilities in a variety of jobs including metalwork, woodwork, and electrical installation, according to the facility’s website. It is run by the Catholic Church’s Caritas organisation.

Some 100 firefighters were deployed to battle the flames, Straub said. Dozens of ambulance workers were at the scene, and smoke poured from windows of the modern, three-story centre.

There are usually 100 to 120 people in the centre at any one time, Karl-Heinz Schmid, a police spokesman, told Suedwestrundfunk radio.

“It will take days to investigate what caused the fire,” he said.

The town’s mayor, Armin Hinterseh, said the centre’s buildings were quite new.

“It is devastating. We now have to find out how it happened,” he was quoted as saying by local daily Badische Zeitung.