Early morning fire in Torre del Mar town hall following nationwide power cut

A fire early this Tuesday morning affected part of Torre del Mar's town hall building. The alarms went off at around 6.30am when, for reasons still unknown until the ongoing investigation is complete, a fire swept through several offices located on the ground floor of the historical building. This particular building formed part of the complex that made up the old sugar factory of El Carmen, today known more by its brand name of La Azucarera.

Local crews from Malaga's provincial fire brigade (CPB) arrived quickly and extinguished the flames. There were no personal injuries as there were no staff inside at the time the blaze started. However, the heat and the flames caused significant material damage to several offices that contained numerous archives.

"It has been complicated because there has been a lot of material damage to many important files, beach plans and items that were very necessary," said deputy mayor Jesús Carlos Pérez Atencia, of local independent political party, GIPMTM.

He explained that the National Police have taken charge of the investigation into the incident. "There seem to be three points where the fire started and that casts more doubt on what may have happened, although it could have been due to the blackout, we don't know that as yet," he said. The premises remain closed until the police investigation has been completed.

For their part, sources consulted by SUR have indicated that the origin of the fire was a multiplug socket located in one of the offices, so everything points to the fire being caused by an electrical fault once the power supply was restored following the unprecedented blackout that hit mainland Spain and Portugal for many hours on Monday.