Spain mourns as 18 friends killed by gas leak

Spain is mourning the death of 18 friends at a birthday party after a gas leak at a mountain hostel they rented.

Spain is mourning the death of 18 friends at a birthday party after a gas leak at a mountain hostel they rented.

The bodies were found at the remote Sant Cristofol hostel near the picturesque medieval village of La Todolella, 180 miles east of Madrid.

It was the worst death toll in a gas leak in Spain in at least 15 years, Spanish media reports said.

"It hits all of Spain. It's a day of national mourning. Eighteen young people have died," said Mr Francisco Camps, head of the government of the Valencia region where the bodies were found. "The tragedy is absolute," he told state radio.

READ MORE

About 50 people had gone to the birthday party at the hostel on Saturday night and the dead had stayed the night there while the others decided to return home.

The dead included a group of musicians who had played at the party, according to the website of newspaper El Mundo.

Two people survived who slept in another room of the hostel. They were found unconscious yesterday afternoon but were revived.

The deaths were apparently due to a faulty gas heater that the party-goers had taken with them to warm up a cold night. The hostel had central heating but it had broken in recent freezing weather.