Several dead in fire at Brussels construction site

Several people have died in a fire at a construction site in Brussels, with a search for six missing persons ongoing, local authorities said.

An unspecified number of bodies had been found in one of two elevators at the large renovation project on the central Place de Brouckere where a fire broke out early on Tuesday, a spokesman for the local labour inspection service said.

"We had small access to one of the two elevator cabinets and there we had a view that there are some corpses of two or three people who died," spokesman Brecht Speybrouck told Reuters.

He said a total of six workers were unaccounted for and that it was unclear what had caused the fire.

The local fire brigade said more than 200 workers had been on the site when the fire broke out and that three people had been taken to a hospital.

An initial fire at the lower floors of the renovation project was contained relatively quickly, Belgian broadcaster VRT said, citing the fire brigade.

But flames that went through the elevator shafts caused a new fire in an underground floor, the firefighters said.