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Authorities are investigating an apparent mass food poisoning event that sickened around 40 wedding attendees.
A 96-year-old woman—the grandmother of the bride—was also found dead following the event, but it is not yet clear what the cause of her death was, 20 Minutos reported.
The wedding took place on Saturday in the village of Peñaranda de Bracamonte, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León located in western Spain.
All of the guests who fell ill after attending the wedding and banquet visited medical centers in the early hours of Sunday complaining of similar symptoms.
Spain's Civil Guard, one of two national police forces in the country, as well as the governing administrative body, or Junta, of Castile and León are now investigating each of the cases involving people who were treated at the medical centers.
Some of the attendees who attended the wedding banquet, which took place at a hotel restaurant in the village, suspect that prawns may have been responsible for the potential poisoning, La Gaceta de Salamanca reported.
The 96-year-old woman who died had traveled from Cantabria, an autonomous region on Spain's north coast, to attend her granddaughter's wedding.
She died in the early hours of Sunday and her body was found by her relatives at the hotel where she was staying.
That same day, forensic teams performed an autopsy on the woman and took various samples that have been sent to a laboratory to determine the cause of death.
The mayoress of Peñaranda de Bracamonte, Carmen Ávila, expressed her deepest condolences to the relatives of the deceased woman in a statement to Spanish news agency EFE.
Ávila said it was not yet known whether the cause of her death was food poisoning or not. The mayoress also said that she hoped for a speedy recovery for the approximately 40 people affected.
The owners of the hotel restaurant—Las Cabañas—where the wedding celebrations took place are "in shock", one of them, Manuel Vicente Díaz, told La Crónica de Salamanca.
"The Junta is investigating what happened, but we still don't know if it has to do with us. We limit ourselves to collaborating with them and we have to wait for the results of the analyses," he said.
Newsweek has contacted Las Cabañas and the regional government, the Junta of Castile and León, via email for comment.
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About the writer
Aristos is a Newsweek science and health reporter with the London, U.K., bureau. He is particularly focused on archaeology and ... Read more