Venues next to it. The cause of the blaze is unknown, but its effect was devastating. Translation we dont know anything. We are waiting for news to see whether some of our Family Members have come out alive. Translation i think we left 30 seconds or one minute before i the alarms went off and all the lights went out and there were screams saying there was a fire. I was in a place where i could get out, but five Family Members and two friends are still missing. Emergency services have been searching through the rubble, trying to find bodies. For friends and relatives of those who did not escape the blaze, it has been an agonising wait. Theyve been receiving support from counsellors in a nearby sports complex. The police are now carrying out dna tests on the bodies of those killed in an attempt to identify them, but it could be a slow process. This is the worst Nightclub Fire in spain in more than 30 years, and the local authorities have declared three days of mourning. Us President Joe
As our spain correspondent guy hedgecoe reports. The fire began at around 6am in the Fonda Milagros nightclub before spreading to two venues next to it. The cause of the blaze is unknown, but its effect was devastating. Translation we dont know anything. We are waiting for news to see whether some of our Family Members have come out alive. Translation i think we left 30 seconds or one minute before the alarms went off and all the lights went out and there were screams saying there was a fire. I was in a place where i could get out, but five Family Members and two friends are still missing. Emergency services have been searching through the rubble, trying to find bodies. For friends and relatives of those who did not escape the blaze, it has been an agonising wait. Theyve been receiving support from counsellors in a nearby sports complex. The police are now carrying out dna tests on the bodies of those killed in an attempt to identify them, but it could be a slow process. This is the wo
ben wedeman is there outside mosul. where does the operation stand at this hour? reporter: what we saw yesterday, jake, was kurdish forces took about 77 square miles and those nine villages you mentioned. today, because they re doing sort of the kurds will move one day, the iraqi army the next. today was the turn of the iraqi army. they re approaching mosul from the south and from the east. now, on the east they are battling with isis in the town of qaraqosh. it s a christian town. it once had a population of about 50,000. all of those christians were driven out by isis or fled. so the battle rages on there. but certainly so far they ve made pretty impressive progress. but we are talking about the outskirts. the see itself, which normally has a population of 2 million,
5:00 a.m. on the u.s. east coast. first to iraq, the battle to retake that nation s second largest city from isis. the iraqi military now advancesing on a town just north of mosul. this is believed to be the closest that security forces have gotten to that city. within the past hour, we ve learned that the military has launched a large scale offensive to retake the city of qaraqosh. that is about nine miles to the east of mosul. so far, they have killed at least 50 militants and have raised st iraqi flag. the u.s. secretary of defense, ash carter, is also in baghdad for a surprise visit and getting an update about the battles that are taking place. we get the latest this hour from cnn s arwa damon live in iraq following the story. good to have you with us. what can you tell us about these new pushes by the iraq-led forces?