Firemen search for victims in the rubble

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One floor collapsed on top of another in a furniture store packed with bargain-hunters in southern Spain on Thursday, injuring at least 100 people, officials said. The store on the outskirts of the city of Seville, was crammed with several hundred customers, attracted by a discount sale of sofas priced at 3'000 pesetas each, when the accident occurred. Ambulances raced to the scene in the small town of Dos Hermanas, where firefighters and paramedics pulled people from the damaged building. A police spokesman said there were no fatalities. Most of the victims were only slightly hurt, but at least three people were seriously injured. Up to 400 shoppers had formed a long line outside the Muebles Peralta Store. When the doors opened, they rushed in, eager to take advantage of the sale. Within five minutes, part of the first storey caved in under the weight of the crowd, sandwiching shoppers and employees in the rubble. “The floor collapsed because of the concentration of people in one particular area of the building,” Francisco Toscano, the town's mayor, told reporters. Joaquin Fernandez, an employee at the store, said he was on the ground floor when he heard a loud bang and rushed to see what had happened.