Polish officials have shut down 13 escape room sites over safety issues after five teenage girls were killed in a fire at one such venue.
The girls died on Friday in an escape room at a private house in the city of Koszalin. They had been locked inside the room as part of birthday celebrations.
Firefighters found the bodies of the 15-year-old victims after they extinguished a fire next to the locked room. Postmortem examinations showed they died of carbon monoxide inhalation.
Firefighter chief Leszek Suski said the escape room had no emergency evacuation route.
Police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk said other clients had previously posted critical remarks online about the safety of that escape room site, but local officials had not been notified of this issue.
The 28-year-old who runs the site has been detained and will be questioned, Mr Szymczyk said. His employee, who suffered burns in the fire, is also going to be questioned.
Prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the deaths an "immense tragedy".
He was speaking after holding a meeting in which officials discussed ways of improving safety at entertainment venues.
Since Friday, more than 200 of Poland’s some 1,100 escape rooms have been examined, revealing a number of safety flaws that needed to be fixed immediately.
Players in escape room games are locked inside a room or building and must solve puzzles and find clues that lead them to the key that will unlock the door.
The games are highly popular among teenagers in Poland. – AP