At least four people are dead and 14 others missing after a fire in a 14-story residential building spread with spectacular speed in the Spanish port city of Valencia, authorities said. “We can confirm that there are four deaths,” Jorge Suarez Torres, deputy director of emergencies for the Valencia region, told the press on the night of Thursday to Friday.
Locating bodies made possible by drones
According to Spanish media, the location of the bodies was made possible by drones. The prefect of the Valencia region, Pilar Bernabé, indicated for her part on Friday morning that “14 people” had “not been located” among the residents of the building which would have 138 apartments. “This figure may vary,” she warned, however.
The mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, cited the figure of “9 to 15” missing based on information collected from the local police and residents of the building while a source within the town hall had indicated overnight to AFP, on condition of anonymity, that 19 people were missing.
Firefighters have not yet been able to enter the building in the El Campanar district, where the fire broke out on Thursday around 5:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. GMT) on the fourth floor before spreading at spectacular speed. “The characteristics of the building do not allow us at the moment to extinguish (the fire) in the interior part” of the building, said Jorge Suarez Torres. “We are working to cool the building at the facade level, this is the objective for the next few hours and we cannot indicate at the moment when we will be able to enter inside the structure,” he added. said.
A flammable coating on the facade
According to the president of the region, Carlos Mazón, 15 people were treated Thursday for injuries of varying degrees, including seven firefighters. Six of them are still hospitalized but “we have no fear for their lives,” he stressed.
The building caught fire “in a few minutes”, “it’s as if it was made of straw”, Luis Ibañez, a resident of the neighborhood, told public television. “I didn’t believe what I saw. The wind was blowing enormously and the fire was spreading at an impressive speed,” he added. “It’s horrible” to “think that people can be there, inside,” reacted Luis Alberto Clarín, a local resident, to AFPTV.
Speaking on regional television A Punt, Esther Puchades, number two of the regional association of industrial engineers (COGITI), questioned the presence on the facade of a polyurethane coating, which is very flammable. Other experts went in the same direction.
In June 2017, Grenfell Tower in London caught fire like a torch, with the flames spreading at high speed due to the cladding placed on the facade. Seventy-two people were killed.
Father and daughter rescued
In total, 22 firefighting teams were deployed to the Valence building to try to put out the flames, rescuers said on X. Eight medical units were also sent to the scene of the disaster, where a field hospital has been installed.
A video posted on social networks in the evening showed firefighters saving a father and his daughter, trapped on their balcony. The owner of a flower shop located near the building described scenes of “chaos” on public television.
The Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said he was “dismayed by the terrible fire” on the same social network. The socialist leader said he had offered local authorities “all the necessary help” from the central state and conveyed his “solidarity to all those affected”. The country was recently marked by a dramatic fire which left 13 dead in early October in a nightclub in Murcia (south-east). Six people were charged in December with “involuntary homicide” after this tragedy.