Four unidentified victims have been confirmed and at least between 9 and 14 people are still missing, according to the latest interim assessment carried out this morning by Mayor María José Catala from the emergency station near the 14-storey building reduced to a skeleton by the frightening. Fire yesterday afternoon.
Of the 14 injured, only six are still in hospital, including 5 firefighters, due to burns or fractures they sustained while trying to rescue residents of the two-building residential complex. Catala reported that a psychological assistance point for families of the disappeared had been established at the forward command post, while a second point was set up to assist evacuated families in the center of La Tabacalera. 36 residents of the two buildings are still being hosted in hotels.
video Spain, a fire destroys two buildings in Valencia: at least 4 dead
The fire broke out at 5.30 pm on the eighth floor for reasons that are still under investigation, due to strong westerly winds and high temperatures reaching 25 degrees, and quickly spread along the vertical length of the skyscraper and also extended to Tower 2 in the same building. Of the residential complex, where about 350 people live in 140 apartments.
Several residents, including a father, his daughter and a couple, who were trapped for a long time on the balconies of the upper floors of the building, were taken to safety by firefighters who rushed to the scene with dozens of teams. While a camping hospital was established and mobile burn and resuscitation units were sent. Firefighters have not yet examined the interior of the building, which may collapse.
The 112 emergency services benefited from the cooperation of the army's military unit, which sent a convoy of vehicles from Madrid to control the fire and secure the towers. The testimonies of residents of the luxury residential complex, in one of the city’s expansion areas, a symbol of the real estate boom, are exciting. “We saw the windows blown out by the fire and the temperature became unbearable and we ran outside. But there were still many people inside, desperately screaming for their relatives and whom the firefighters asked to put wet clothes under their doors,” Vicente said in an interview with RTVE television. National: “Try to block the fire and smoke.”
Adriana Bano, the complex's manager, told local media in Levante, in shock and tears: “We were surprised by the speed with which the fire spread. An hour later the fire also reached Tower 2, and there are still many people inside.” According to the initial reconstruction carried out by firefighters, insulating materials in buildings built 15 years ago would have helped the rapid development of the fire, even without the activation of fire prevention systems.
The vice president of the Valencia Industrial Technical Engineers Association, Esther Bachadis, who evaluated the skyscraper, attributed the ferocity of the fire to the coating of a layer of polyurethane between the aluminum sheets covering the facade, and told Valencian television “A Pont” that it was a “highly flammable” product, causing The fire spread to the entire building in less than half an hour.
According to the expert, the fire will constitute a “before and after” stage in Spain, as no incident of this dramatic magnitude has yet occurred. After the Grenfell skyscraper fire in London in 2017, which caused dozens of casualties, some countries, including Great Britain, banned polyurethane in building facades, but not Spain where, especially during the real estate boom of the decade 2000-2009, History As the construction of the Valencia Towers dates back, it could have been used on a large scale.
“It is still, although isolated with fire barriers,” to prevent the spread of fire in the event of a fire. According to Boujades, after today's fire in Spain, where no fire of this large size has occurred yet, it is possible to review the legislation to ban the use of polyurethane in building cladding. Meanwhile, during the night in Valencia, a solidarity competition broke out among citizens to redistribute the evacuated families who were all hosted, including in hotels and reception facilities, after losing everything in the tragic fire.
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