Fourteen people perished and several more were injured when fire swept through a workshop for handicapped people in the Black Forest region of Germany yesterday, authorities said.

Around 300 firefighters backed by helicopters battled the blaze in Titisee-Neustadt in southwestern Germany for more than two hours, as some wearing breathing apparatus pulled several people from the stricken building.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known but there was a large police presence at the site. At least one explosion was believed to have taken place in a storage room. It was still unclear whether chemicals were stored in the room, but the workshop’s activities included the treatment of wood.

Pictures showed smoke billowing out of the three-storey concrete building and firefighters helping the injured, some in wheelchairs, to helicopters and ambulances.

“We can tell you that we have 14 dead. The process of identification is ongoing,” Karl-Heinz Schmid, a spokesman for police in the nearby city of Freiburg, told news channel N24.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.