There are four confirmed victims, and at least twenty people missing, who the firefighters believe not to have survived, of the enormous fire that devoured and reduced a 14-storey building in the Campanar district of Valencia to a burning skeleton.
The flames, which broke out at 5.30pm from the eighth floor for reasons still under investigation, due to the strong westerly wind and the high temperatures of 25 degrees, quickly spread along the vertical of the skyscraper and also extended to the tower 2, in the same block as the residential complex, where a total of around 350 people live in 140 apartments. Another 14 people were injured, with fractures, burns and smoke intoxication, including several firefighters and a child, hospitalized in various hospitals in the city.
Numerous residents, trapped for a long time on balconies on the upper floors of the building, were brought to safety by firefighters, who rushed to the scene with dozens of teams, while a field hospital was set up and mobile burn and resuscitation units were sent. The firefighters have not yet inspected the interior of the building, which risks collapsing. The 112 emergency services avail themselves of the collaboration of the Ume, the military unit of the army, which sent a caravan of vehicles from Madrid to bring the flames under control and secure the two towers.
The testimonies of the residents of the luxury residential complex, in one of the expansion areas of the city, symbol of the real estate boom, are dramatic. «We saw the windows explode from the fire and the temperature became unbearable and we fled outside. But there were still many people inside, screaming in desperation looking for their relatives and who were told by the firefighters to put wet cloths under the doors to try to block the flames and smoke", said Vicente, interviewed by national TV. Rtve.
According to an initial reconstruction by the firefighters, the insulating material on the buildings built 15 years ago would have favored the rapid development of the fire, even without the fire prevention systems having been activated. The vice-president of the Order of Industrial Technical Engineers of Valencia, Esther Pchades, who carried out an assessment of the skyscraper, attributed the voracity of the flames to the coating of , a "highly flammable" product. , which caused the flames to spread to the entire building in less than half an hour", he told Valencian TV A' Punt.
