26 November 2012
Last updated at 20:37 GMT
Some people were trapped inside by heavy smoke, as Steve Evans reports
Fourteen people have died and eight people injured in a major fire at a workshop for disabled people in south-western Germany.
The blaze occurred at the centre run by the Caritas charity
in the Black Forest town of Titisee-Neustadt, some 40km (25 miles) east
of Freiburg.
About 50 people were believed to be in the building when the fire started.
The cause is unclear, but local media reports that there may have been an explosion in a store room.
The centre is reportedly used for woodwork and metalwork, but
it is not known whether there were any flammable materials on site.
'Devastating'
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“Start Quote
It is devastating - we now have to find out how it happened”
Armin Hinterseh
Mayor of Titisee-Neustadt
The blaze occurred at about
14:00 local time (13:00 GMT), and flames were first spotted on the roof
of the modern three-storey building.
Alexander Widmaier, of the local fire department, said his
firefighters were on the scene within six minutes but a "massive" amount
of smoke had filled the building "extremely quickly".
More than 100 firefighters backed by helicopters tackled the
blaze - some, wearing breathing apparatus, braved the thick smoke to
rescue a number of people trapped inside.
But police confirmed that not every one made it out.
"We can tell you that we have 14 dead. The process of
identification is ongoing," local police spokesman Karl-Heinz Schmid
told N24 television. He said it would "take days" for the investigation
to get to the cause of the fire.
The number of wounded has risen from seven to eight, but none are thought to be suffering from life-threatening injuries.
The centre is run by Caritas, a relief organisation affiliated
with the Catholic Church, and offers a range of workshops to people with
both mental and physical disabilities.
"We know the colleagues at the scene will do everything to
find out the cause for this terrible event," Caritas president Peter
Neher was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
Police have spoken of the bewilderment of many of the survivors by what had happened.
The town's mayor Armin Hinterseh said the buildings were
quite new. "It is devastating. We now have to find out how it happened,"
he told the local daily Badische Zeitung.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Twitter that she was "shocked" by the loss of so many lives. COPY http://www.bbc.co.uk
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