Huge apartment block fire in Spain kills at least 10

VALENCIA, Spain – At least 10 people were killed by

a huge fire that ripped through an apartment block

in an affluent district of Spain’s third-largest city Valencia, the authorities said on Feb 24.

The blaze, fanned by strong winds, engulfed the block in Valencia’s El Campanar district within half an hour on the evening of Feb 22, witnesses said.

Still shaken, one of the surviving residents, 53-year-old Jose Carlos Perez, told Reuters he grabbed what he could and rushed out of his 12th-floor apartment after he saw smoke outside his window.

“Physically, I’m dressed, but inside, I’m naked because I have nothing, because everything I had was there,” Mr Perez, who lived alone, said as he stood outside the SH Valencia Palace hotel, where more than 100 survivors like himself are being temporarily housed.

Firefighters with masks and oxygen tanks worked their way through the charred building on Feb 23 looking for bodies or survivors.

Valencia Mayor Maria Jose Catala said later in the day that there were no more missing people.

On the evening of Feb 23, the authorities said on X that police had revised the number of dead to nine from 10 in the process of identifying the bodies in the building.

But the authorities confirmed a 10th body had been found on the morning of Feb 24, in a new statement on X.

Two firefighters suffered serious injuries and were hospitalised.

Valencians flocked to donate clothes, medicine and toys for surviving residents, who lost all their belongings in the fire.

The director of SH Valencia Palace, Mr Javier Valles, said the hotel was temporarily housing 110 people and a regional official said it would receive money for daily costs.

The majority of survivors are staying with relatives.

“People were very affected... The least we could do was help,” Mr Valles said.

‘Lost everything’

Visiting the scene on Feb 23, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said residents “had lost everything in a matter of minutes in this terrible fire”.

Emergency services said the fire began on the fourth floor of one of the towers, but gave no cause.

A local magistrate has opened an investigation into the blaze.

Ms Esther Puchades, a representative of insurance inspection agency Apcas, told broadcaster RTVE that a lack of firewalls and the use of the plastic material polyurethane on the facade would have contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze, a comment evoking memories of

the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in London

in 2017.

A 2007 promotional video by the building’s developers highlighted the “innovative material” used to clad the building’s exterior, which passed “rigorous quality checks”.

It did not mention polyurethane.

The spread of the fire in the Grenfell Tower block

in west London that killed 72 people after an electrical fault was blamed on the use of highly flammable external cladding.

Dental experts are headed to Valencia from other parts of Spain to help identify charred bodies, while police collected DNA samples from relatives for the same purpose.

An acrid smell hung in the air at the site of the fire.

Panicked residents had rushed to balconies to plead for help as burning embers fell to the ground during the fire. At least two people were rescued from their balconies on cranes.

The building, comprising two towers linked by what its developers described as a “panoramic lift”, was completed in 2008, officials said. It had 138 apartments, newspaper El Pais reported.

Residents of another block of flats in Valencia by the same developers expressed concern over the materials used on their own building and urged the authorities to investigate.

“Everyone is very worried,” said 42-year-old resident Andrea Martinez, who added that she would leave Valencia over the weekend as she needed to “disconnect” from what had happened. “Things don’t happen until they do.”

Valencia decreed three days of mourning, cancelled local football matches and suspended the start of the city’s month-long, annual Fallas festival, which features the torching of large cardboard statues and a fireworks display. REUTERS