The family with a three-year-old girl, a newborn baby and both parents perished in the fire. A total of ten people have now been found dead, according to the mayor of the city, Maria José Catalá. There are fears that the death toll will rise. Several people are still missing. Total damage – Thank goodness the lift worked, says a woman named Rida to the newspaper El Pais. She lived in the block of flats in the Campanar area, which on Thursday night became the scene of one of the biggest fires in Valencia’s history. On Friday morning, the building was completely damaged. Throughout the night, the fire crews worked to bring the fire under control, which also spread to a neighboring building. Military personnel are also in town to help. The fire brigade’s aim is now to cool down the building, so that they can start searching for people and investigate the cause of the fire. It is still not clear when they will be able to get inside, writes El Mundo. Rida says that her husband was at work when the fire happened. – There is nothing left of my house anymore. An overview picture shows the extent of the fire damage on Friday morning. Photo: AP The town’s mayor María José Catalá says on Friday that between 9 and 15 people have still not been accounted for, writes Reuters. The city council has adopted a three-day mourning period after the tragedy, reports El Pais. – Valencia is going through a very difficult period, said the mayor. 15 people have also received various types of injuries, including seven firefighters. All are out of danger. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is on his way to Valencia, Spanish media write. Cooling down the building The 14-storey block caught fire at around 17:30 local time. Within half an hour the entire building was on fire. According to municipal sources, there were dramatic hours that followed. Among other things, a firefighter had to jump down from the 7th floor onto a mat because of the sea of flames. Several residents were rescued from balconies in the burning building. Some jumped from apartment to apartment. Photo: AP Most of the roughly 500 residents in the block must have managed to evacuate before the fire spread. Local newspaper Las Provincias wrote on Thursday that the fire brigade managed to get a father and his daughter out of a balcony. They must have jumped from apartment to apartment to escape the flames. Two teenagers who were in a park next door say they saw and heard residents calling for help from the balconies, writes El Pais. The fire service is said to have also placed mattresses on the ground in an attempt to rescue residents from the lower floors. Combustible insulation The fire started in one of the lower floors, but the cause of the fire is currently unknown, according to Spanish media. According to an expert, the block from 2008 should have been built with polyurethane, an insulating material that is very flammable and is no longer used in new buildings, writes Las Provincias. This may be the reason why the fire spread as quickly as it did, write several of the Spanish media. Engineer David Higuera told El Pais that the plates that made up the outer layer are good at insulating against heat and cold, but also very flammable. A witness described how she saw “burning slabs” falling to the ground. London’s Grenfell Tower, where 72 people died and over 70 were injured when the building caught fire in 2017, was clad in the same material. Opening investigation The judicial authorities in Valencia state on Friday afternoon that they have opened an investigation into the fire. They report that the proceedings are to be kept secret for the time being.
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– Nothing left of my home – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
