“Look, I don’t work until Tuesday.” The music barely lets you hear the voice of Jorge Bajiota in the video with which I thought to make a friend envious. She was spending early Sunday morning in Fonda, a well-known place with good Latin music and drinks. It was a night to enjoy with his wife Rosa and two friends. They had all come down together from Caravacawhere this type of premises does not exist, Atalayas de Murcia industrial estate, bustling center of the night in the entire region that is in full swing at six in the morning. At 34 years old, why not enjoy a night without his three children, taking advantage of the fact that his job as a tractor driver in an agricultural company allowed it. When he sent that video to a friend, he could not even imagine that the place would burn in flames a few minutes later, like the one next door. theater and part of Golden. They were on the second floor where the 13 confirmed dead were trapped and which ended up collapsing to unleash hell.
The flames appeared, according to witnesses, through the air conditioning duct and ignited the premises in a matter of seconds, swallowing 13 people. Their charred corpses are being identified in an arduous task that will take days. On Sunday it was assumed that there were five missing, but this Monday it has been confirmed that there are no new fatalities.
Along with Jorge and Rosa there was also another friend and his girlfriend, who was able to shout a shocking farewell cry to her parents. She sent them an audio in which you could hear: “Mommy, I love her. We are going to die”. His father, broken with pain, showed him at the doors of the Murcia Sports Palace, where families gathered, a few meters from where the fire devoured their loved ones. These four friends were residents of the town of Caravaca and several friends came to try to help in the identification efforts. It is the case of Bryan Alexander, who traveled with Jorge’s mother to Murcia. They have been friends since more than 20 years ago, when they were kids, they came from Ecuador. “We work together and we are doing everything possible to help find them… or identify them,” she acknowledged when hope faded as the hours passed. Photographs, tattoos, chains, earrings… anything could help.
According to sources consulted by this newspaper in the Forensic Anatomical Institute of Murcia, identifications will not be easy. The bodies rescued by firefighters, in an environment collapsed by the fire, propped up and smoking until late in the afternoon, were absolutely charred. The mayor of Murcia, Jose Ballestaconfirmed that only three of them could be identified by the Judicial police at the doors of the same nightclub because of fingerprints. The rest will have to be done through ADN. The autopsies will be done this Monday, but the samples of genetic material must be collected from both the bodies and the relatives and sent to Madrid for comparison. They will be days of anguish for many family members, friends and neighbors who are being assisted by specialized teams and, as President Fernando López Miras explained, visibly affected after visiting the families, they have at their disposal “all the resources of the Region of Murcia.” That means hotels, travel and psychological care. Part of Jorge and Rosa’s family will receive her in Caravaca, “because they are not in a position to travel,” confirmed the mayor of the town. Jose Francisco Garciawho accompanied them throughout the afternoon at the Palace.
But the tragic stories followed one another while the City Council announced that it would appear in the judicial investigation “whatever the cost and whoever falls.”