“I woke up and smelled of smoke. I have looked to see if something was burning at home and I have not found anything. Afterwards, I have seen the door to the interior patio of the kitchen open and I have seen what happened & rdquor ;. Adriana lives just above the occupied premises that have burned during the early hours of this Tuesday, a fire that has killed all four members of a family: father, mother, son and daughter. The little ones were 3 years and 6 months old. This neighbor still has traces of smoke on her face and hands when she attends EL PERIÓDICO. Still in shock. She does not forget what she saw when she opened the kitchen door: a column of smoke so intense that it did not let her even look out. And he wanted to do it because he could hear the cries for help coming from just below the floor. “They were asking for help and I couldn’t help them & rdquor ;, she repeats herself in anguish. All he has been able to do has been to call 112, get his two children out of bed and go outside, to pray that the firefighters would arrive immediately.
Your call has been key. The Barcelona Bombers have arrived in time to rescue the people who asked for help alive. The four of them were surrounded by smoke in that inner courtyard. Slightly intoxicated, they are already recovering in the hospital. It has been a matter of minutes. The inner courtyard was rather a simple connection without a roof between two spaces that belonged to the damaged premises, a ground floor that until 2020 was an EVO Banco headquarters and which have been occupied since then. The four people were trapped because, as can be seen in the video that accompanies this news, the inner courtyard had become a mousetrap with smooth walls and impossible to climb. The firefighters, through Adriana’s apartment, have been taking them out one by one and have thus prevented the tragic count of deaths due to suffocation from falling from eight to four.
A family
When the firefighters were able to enter the old bank headquarters, they found the lifeless bodies of the four members of the deceased family, intoxicated by the same smoke from which the four survivors had been able to flee through the inner courtyard. “The father was Pakistani, the mother was Romanian and they had two children, 3 years old and 6 months old,” explains Adriana, who had known them for a long time and describes a situation of extreme social exclusion. “We often saw the little one alone, playing in the park. We neighbors called him because we were afraid of being run over & rdquor ;. Adriana has a son of the same age and she used to give him clothes.
The 6-month-old daughter was born very premature. “His mother smoked throughout her pregnancy and when she gave birth she returned to the premises without the baby. They didn’t bring her in until after many days and she was still a tiny girl & rdquor;, she remembers. “The father when he did not drink was nice, but when he drank we heard him scream from home,” he explains.
An “avoidable” tragedy
Both Adriana and the rest of the neighbors consulted by this newspaper feel very helpless in the face of what happened. Because they claim that they had called the authorities dozens of times to ask them to act. The fights were continuous and this was not the place for the two little ones. The social services of the City Council, according to the mayor Ada Colau, cared for the family to ensure that the children had food and health care. Also to make sure that the oldest did not miss school. Colau stressed that it was a follow-up promoted by social services because it was not a family asking for help but rather a family who had to be asked what they needed. For the neighbors of the block, these explanations are not enough. Their perception is that they called over and over again, warning of discussions, denouncing a risk situation for both themselves and the children, and no one acted.
This same morning a neighbor called 112 because there was the last fight. A Mossos patrol has come to attend the service. Hours later, a fire broke out in a place surrounded by mattresses and clothes, as the more precariously occupied places tend to be.
Related news
“This has happened has been an avoidable tragedy,” they repeat this Tuesday morning, in a complaint they launch not only against Colau, but against all politicians – such as the Interior Minister, Joan Ignasi Elena, whose department manages the emergency bodies and it is just fifty meters from the premises – and they extend to the social services, the police forces and even the journalists who have come to cover the news when it was too late for the children.
“I did not want to call the DGAIA because it would have meant separating a family. But now the two children are dead,” Adriana reproaches herself.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com