Several dead in Brussels construction site fire, say authorities

Several people were killed after a fire broke out at a major construction site in central Brussels on Tuesday, with rescue teams continuing to search for six workers who remain missing, news agency Reuters reported citing local authorities. The blaze erupted at a large renovation project on Place de Brouckere, where more than 200 workers were present at the time. Three people were taken to hospital, while authorities said an unspecified number of bodies had been discovered inside one of the site’s two elevator shafts.“We had small access to one of the two elevator cabinets and ⁠there we ‌had a view that there are some corpses of two or three people ⁠who died,” Reuters quoted spokesman Brecht Speybrouck saying. Speybrouck said six workers were still unaccounted for and added that the cause of the fire was not yet known. According to the local fire brigade, an initial blaze on the lower floors was brought under control relatively quickly. However, flames spread through the elevator shafts, triggering a second fire in an underground section of the building and complicating rescue efforts. Emergency crews continued search operations as investigators worked to determine the cause of the incident.