At least four people died in a huge fire that gutted a multistory apartment block in Spain’s eastern port city of Valencia, with another 14 people injured.
The toll could rise, with 14 people missing, a source on the city council who asked not to be named said.
The fire began at about 5:30pm on Thursday on the fourth floor and spread rapidly, witnesses and the emergency services said, with images showing flames and vast clouds of black smoke engulfing the building in the Campanar neighborhood of western Valencia.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It can be confirmed that four people have died,” Jorge Suarez Torres, deputy director of emergency services for the Valencia region, told reporters.
Fourteen people had been treated for injuries of varying degrees, including a seven-year-old, and 12 of them were transferred to hospitals, emergency services said.
Spain’s TVE public television said there were more than 130 apartments in the 14-story building which was rapidly “reduced to a skeleton,” with 22 teams of firefighters battling the blaze.
Speaking to regional television station A Punt, Esther Puchades, deputy head of Valencia’s Industrial Engineers Association, said the fire had spread so rapidly because the building was covered with highly flammable polyurethane cladding.
Luis Ibanez, who lives nearby, told TVE he had looked out of a window and saw the flames engulfing the block “within a matter of minutes,” saying it was “as if it was made of cork.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The whole side of the building directly opposite was on fire, from the first floor to the sixth and seventh floor,” he said. “There was a really strong wind and the fire was spreading to the left at a huge speed.”
One resident, Vicente, came home to find the building in flames, telling TVE he thought everyone had been safely evacuated.
“I think they all got out,” he said.
Footage on social media that was reposted by Spanish media outlets showed a father and daughter being rescued from a balcony where they were trapped.
“Please stay away from the area of the fire to let the emergency services do their work,” Valencia Mayor Maria Jose Catala wrote on social media.
A woman who runs a nearby flower shop told public television the building was no more than 14 years old and had more than 100 apartments, all of which were occupied.
“What caused the fire to spread was mostly the wind,” she said, describing scenes of “chaos” as the blaze took hold, snarling traffic and sending clouds of smoke everywhere.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on social media said that he was “shocked by the terrible fire,” and was in contact with the mayor and the region’s leader “to offer whatever help needed,” and extending his condolences to everyone affected by the blaze.
The fears of polyurethane cladding exacerbating the Valencia fire recalled the 2017 tragedy at London’s Grenfell Tower.
In that incident, a fire at a 24-story high-rise in west London killed 72 people, with the blaze spreading rapidly due to the highly combustible cladding on the block’s outside walls.
A public inquiry into the disaster is still ongoing.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS