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Toxic Cloud Forces 160,000 Spaniards to Stay Inside after Fire

A picture taken on May 10, 2025 shows smoke billowing from a building storing pool cleaning products, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru, south of Barcelona. (AFP)
A picture taken on May 10, 2025 shows smoke billowing from a building storing pool cleaning products, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru, south of Barcelona. (AFP)
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Toxic Cloud Forces 160,000 Spaniards to Stay Inside after Fire

A picture taken on May 10, 2025 shows smoke billowing from a building storing pool cleaning products, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru, south of Barcelona. (AFP)
A picture taken on May 10, 2025 shows smoke billowing from a building storing pool cleaning products, in the coastal city of Vilanova i la Geltru, south of Barcelona. (AFP)

Around 160,000 people in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region were warned to stay inside on Saturday after a fire at an industrial estate caused a toxic cloud of chlorine over a wide area, emergency services said.

The blaze at a swimming pool cleaning products company started at 2.20 a.m. (0020 GMT) in Vilanova i la Geltru, a town 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of Barcelona and caused a huge plume of chlorine smoke over the area.

"If you are in the zone that is affected do not leave your home or your place of work," the Civil Protection service said on social media site X.

No one has been hurt in the fire, Catalan emergency services said on Saturday, but residents in five towns were sent a message on their mobile phones telling them to remain inside.

"It is very difficult for chlorine to catch fire but when it does so it is very hard to put it out," the owner of the industrial property, Jorge Vinuales Alonso, told local radio station Rac1.

He said the cause of the fire might have been a lithium battery.

Trains which were due to pass through the area were held up, roads were blocked and other events were cancelled.

The fire was under control, Civil Protection spokesperson Joan Ramon Cabello told the TVE television channel.

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Electric Fences, Drones, Dogs Protect G7 Leaders from Bear Attack

Grizzly bears are a threat at the G7 summit in Canada. JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP
Grizzly bears are a threat at the G7 summit in Canada. JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP
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Electric Fences, Drones, Dogs Protect G7 Leaders from Bear Attack

Grizzly bears are a threat at the G7 summit in Canada. JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP
Grizzly bears are a threat at the G7 summit in Canada. JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP

Electric fences, drones, thermal cameras and police dogs have all been deployed at the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies to protect world leaders from hungry bears.

US President Donald Trump, Italy's Giorgia Meloni and France's Emmanuel Macron are among leaders gathered Monday at a remote mountain lodge for talks -- uninterrupted, if all goes to plan, by ursine attacks.

"While grizzly bears are a top concern, the team is prepared for all wildlife species," Alberta's Ministry of Public Safety spokesperson Sheena Campbell said.

Security teams have erected "fence barriers around locations where attractants (food) are present, including the use of electric bear fence enclosures."

She said fencing was a minimum eight feet (2.4 meters) high to ensure guest safety as part of a multi-pronged operation to prevent "close encounters" with wildlife.

Also being used in the anti-bear battle are thermal imaging cameras, drones from the famous Canadian "Mounties" police force and specially trained K-9 "bear dogs."

The drones will "monitor wildlife activity in real time," Campbell said, adding in the last week alone the team recorded activity of grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, moose, bighorn sheep and deer.

Canadian authorities and summit organizers declined to discuss further details for security reasons.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that a bear warning issued in May was still in place for the Kananaskis Country Golf Course -- where the G7 leaders are scheduled to hold their group portrait during the three-day summit.

The paper added about 65 grizzly bears live in Kananaskis, and some areas have been closed in recent weeks after reports of aggressive charges by a mother with two cubs.

Parks Canada advises that if a bear is protecting its young and sees you as a threat, fall on the ground and play dead. But if the bear is aggressive and after your food, stand your ground.