Huge apartment block fire in Spain kills 10 people

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, authorities said on Friday.

The blaze, fanned by strong winds, engulfed the block within half an hour on Thursday evening, witnesses said.

Firefighters with masks and oxygen tanks worked their way through the charred building on Friday looking for bodies or survivors. Valencia Mayor Maria Jose Catala said later in the day that there were no more missing people.

“In a first visual inspection, 10 bodies were found in the building,” Pilar Bernabe, the central government’s representative for the Valencia region, told reporters.

Two firefighters suffered serious injuries and were hospitalised.

Valencians flocked to donate clothes, medicines and toys for surviving residents who lost all their belongings in the fire and are now being temporarily housed in a nearby hotel.

Valencia’s mayor said 105 people had been rehoused and a regional official said they would receive money for daily costs and rent.

Visiting the scene on Friday, 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.

Esther Puchades, a representative of insurance inspection agency APCAS, told RTVE that a lack of firewalls and 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.