'There was no emergency exit'

2008-04-27 08:56

Casablanca, Morocco - It took just minutes for the blaze at a mattress factory in the Moroccan city of Casablanca to turn into an inferno, burning alive 55 people who could not jump from the windows to safety.

Another 12 people were seriously injured in the fire, the city's deadliest, which apparently broke out on the ground floor of the factory in Lissasfa industrial district of southwest Casablanca.

"I was working on the first floor as an upholsterer. The smoke came up from the ground floor where the foam rubber, wood and glue are stored," Omar Elaaz, 20, told AFP in a city hospital.

"I used a gas bottle to break the wire mesh that protects every window," he said.

Witnesses said the four-storey Rosamor Furniture plant looked like a deadly prison, especially for the female workers trapped inside who did not dare jump from the upper storeys.

"I jumped from the third floor with four other colleagues while the women, who didn't dare to follow us, perished in the inferno," said 31-year-old upholsterer Hakim Hakki from his hospital bed.

"God saved me but I'll never forget those who died."

Thirty five women were among the dead, a forensic police officer told AFP, adding "we'll need DNA tests to identify the many charred bodies."

Another survivor, Ismail Benaahel, 19, recalled his desperate attempts and those of his colleagues to try and escape the suffocating smoke and fire.

"With a few girls we climbed to the fourth floor to escape from the smoke and the horrible smell but there was no emergency exit.

"They didn't dare move. I went down again to the second (floor) and grabbed an empty extinguisher to smash the window," he said.

100 people were working at the plant

About 100 people were working at the plant on Saturday morning and "the people who died were either asphyxiated or burned," a firefighter said.

After the blaze died down, veiled women from the slums and surrounding countryside gathered weeping in front of the gutted building which stank of chemicals and burnt flesh.

Authorities are expected to question the plant's owner and his manager son about the blaze as prosecutors opened an investigation into the cause.

Both survivors and relatives of the victims denounced the working conditions and lack of safety measures in the factory.

"The owner was more worried about protecting his mattresses and his material than the lives of his workers," sobbed Fawza Badr, 70, who lost her 20-year-old daughter Hadida.

The father of Abdelazziz Darif, 19, who died in the blaze, said his son "was paid the meagre sum of 250 dirhams (about R235) a week and had no social cover."

Former employee Fadila Khadija, 28, alleged: "There was no emergency exit, the extinguishers were empty and the working conditions were difficult."

King Mohammed VI ordered the authorities "to take all necessary measures to help the victims," including mobilising burns units at hospitals all over Morocco, including the elite military hospital in the capital Rabat.

Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa, at the scene, called the inferno "catastrophic" and promised an "in-depth and transparent inquiry."

He said prosecutors had asked the judicial police to look into "the circumstances of this disaster and to examine the working conditions (at the plant) with a view to establishing responsibility".

- AFP