Two Colombians Died in Gas Explosion at Madrid Bar, Spain

Written on 09/16/2025
Josep Freixes
Two Colombians died in a gas explosion at a bar in Madrid, Spain, in an incident that left 25 others injured, some of them seriously. Credit: @EmergenciasMad / X.com.

Two Colombians died in an explosion that occurred in a bar in Madrid, the capital of Spain, last weekend, due to an alleged gas buildup. The incident caused two fatalities who, after the recovery of the bodies, were confirmed to be of Colombian nationality.

According to Spanish local media, the blast, which took place in the Vallecas neighborhood of the capital, was caused by a “concentration of gases” and affected the entrance area leading to the upper apartments of the building where the bar was located.

These same reports state that the explosion occurred in a space adjacent to the bar, which had been illegally occupied by someone unrelated to the property and who was one of the deceased. The blaze spread to the adjoining bar in the same building, where, in addition to the other fatality, several people were injured to varying degrees.

Two Colombians die in gas explosion at bar in Madrid, Spain

On the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 13, a powerful explosion shook the working-class neighborhood of Vallecas, located in the south of Madrid, the capital of Spain.

After emergency services arrived at the scene, they learned that at least 25 people were injured in the blaze, three of them seriously and “two potentially very seriously.” One of the most gravely injured happened to be the passenger of a car that was driving down the street right in front of the building when the blast occurred.

According to police, the explosion was caused by a “concentration of gases” in a space with residential use that had been illegally occupied by one of the deceased. The shock wave collapsed the dividing wall with the bar located on the ground floor of the same building.

As hours passed and the rubble was cleared, Spanish authorities found the first body, buried under more than a meter of debris, a 52-year-old Colombian citizen. Apparently, the victim had been living illegally in the space with residential use where the blast occurred.

“The operation has been quite complicated and very labor-intensive because we had to remove people stone by stone and brick by brick,” said Javier Ramos, duty chief of the Madrid Fire Department. Firefighters had to carry out these tasks manually because the instability of the structure made it dangerous to use heavy machinery.

The second body was found by dogs, 24 hours after the explosion

Although the initial report closed on Sunday with only one fatality — the 52-year-old Colombian who lived in the premises adjacent to the bar — a missing person report filed in the area led authorities to continue searching through the rubble for a second body.

On Monday afternoon, the canine unit managed to locate, completely buried under stones and bricks, a second body that, indeed, corresponded to the young Colombian whose disappearance had been reported by his family the previous day.

This second fatality, who did not reside in Madrid, was visiting relatives, and it was a family member who raised the alarm that he might have been at the site at the time of the explosion, police sources added.