Fire in Valencia | At least four dead and 14 missing

(Valencia) At least four people died and 14 were still missing on Friday after a fire in a residential building spread at spectacular speed in the Spanish port city of Valencia.

“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.

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, mentioned the number of “9 to 15” missing.

According to Spanish media, the location of the bodies was made possible by drones, firefighters having not yet been able to enter the 14-story building, in the Campanar district of the country’s third city.

“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 detailed. .

The coating in question

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 fire broke out on Thursday around 5:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. Eastern time) in an intermediate floor of the building built about fifteen years ago, before spreading with spectacular speed.

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.

Several experts have questioned the role of a material used as insulation on the facade in the spread of flames, as during the tragedy at Grenfell Tower in London in June 2017, in which 72 people lost their lives.

Esther Puchades, number two of the regional association of industrial engineers (COGITI), pointed out, in the media, the presence of polyurethane, very flammable, in the panels used on the ventilated facade of the building. Others have rather mentioned the presence of polyethylene, as in the case of Grenfell Tower.

According to Faustino Yanguas, from the Valencia firefighters, “the material, which will have to be investigated, was a factor which contributed greatly” to the rapid spread of the flames, as did “the gusts which exceeded 60 km/h”.

Father and daughter rescued

In total, 22 firefighting teams were deployed to the 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 was installed.

In the evening, firefighters notably saved a father and his daughter, trapped on their balcony, according to a video posted on social networks.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will visit the site at midday on Friday, his services announced.

Spain was already 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.