‘Escape room’ craze turns to tragedy as blaze kills five girls
FIVE teenage girls have been killed in a horrific blaze that broke out in an escape room.
The games – where participants are locked in a room and undergo various challenges and puzzles to get out – have become a global phenomenon in recent years.
The girls, all 15, were believed to have been celebrating a birthday when the incident in Koszalin, north Poland, happened at about 5pm local time on Friday.
A 26-year-old man caught up in the blaze was yesterday being treated in hospital for burns.
Last night, four of the five victims were named on local news websites and social media as Karolina Barabas, Gosia Tymieniecka, Wiktoria Julia Pietras and Amelia Wieczorek.
They were believed to be in the same class at school and are understood to have been good friends.
Hundreds of people gathered yesterday to burn candles in their memory, and a formal ‘ day of mourning’ will take place in Koszalin today.
Investigators i n Poland have blamed a gas leak in a heating system for the fire, with firefighters claiming the tragedy occurred due to the lack of an effective evacuation route.
Earlier in the day, the incident had been blamed on faulty elec- tric wiring and substandard security procedures.
Prosecutors said that carbon monoxide inhalation was the likely cause of the deaths.
Two hours after the tragedy, interior minister Joachim Brudzinski ordered the commander of the State Fire Service to inspect emergency exits in all similar escape rooms, which will start tomorrow. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda sent his condolences to the victims’ families on Twitter.
He wrote: ‘A devastating tragedy in Koszalin. The five joyful girls entering the life have been torn out of life.
‘May the Lord God take care of their parents and loved ones.’
Over the past few years, escape rooms have soared in popularity, with many expensive and complex options. The concept was even made the subject of a Netflix film last year, in which four people are stuck in an escape room with a demonically possessed killer.
In Britain, a number of venues offer variations of the games, which are popular for birthday parties, corporate events or simply as a unique day out.