MADRID: Spanish authorities told more than 160,000 people near Barcelona to stay indoors for nearly seven hours on Saturday, after a fire at an industrial warehouse released a toxic cloud of chlorine over a wide area. The blaze, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru just south of Barcelona, started at dawn on Saturday in a warehouse storing pool cleaning products, the regional fire service said.
Civil protection services instructed people to stay inside and close the windows, before lifting the restrictions around noon. "The lockdown is being lifted," Catalonia's interior minister, Nuria Parlon, announced at a press conference just after 12:15 pm.
Because some harmful particles could remain in the air, he urged children and those with health conditions to remain indoors, and cautioned against exercising outdoors for the moment. Firefighters also urged residents to remain alert, saying that new shelter-in-place orders might be announced in specific areas, depending on the winds and the movement of the toxic cloud. — AFP
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