The police received a call about a fire in an apartment in Valencia around half past five on Thursday afternoon.
An hour later, the flames had spread to the entire complex made up of two residential blocks of 14 and 10 floors, linked by a panoramic elevator.
“I have never seen a fire like this, so fast.
“This is a true tragedy,” commented an agent before knowing the first death toll: 4 dead, between 9 and 15 missing and 15 injured (without risk to their lives).
A tragedy that recalls in its impact the Valencia metro accident in 2006, which took the lives of 43 people and injured 47;
and due to its typology, the fire that caused 72 deaths in the Grenfell Tower in London, in 2017, a building that
It also used in its construction the polyurethane coating used on the façade of these two blocks in Valencia.
Today nothing remains of the 138 homes that housed about 450 people, according to the building's administrator.
This morning a sinister black mass dawned, now without fire, in the popular neighborhood of Campanar, an old town of orchard workers that in the years of the brick boom, in the first decade of the 21st century, experienced notable growth.
So much so that the neighborhood expanded and Nou Campanar was born.
The housing complex was completed there in 2008 in an independent block, with a modern appearance, medium-high quality, apartments with
jacuzzi
and a shiny façade of aluminum plates coated with polyurethane, very effective as an insulator, but also very flammable.
The fire spread rapidly on Thursday afternoon. Mònica Torres
This material was, most likely, what caused the sudden spread of the fire, according to Esther Puchades, vice president of the College of Industrial Technical Engineers of Valencia (Cogitival), who, among other experts, participated in an expert report on that same property.
Other experts also focus on the insulating material as a flame conductor, although it is not clear that it was polyurethane.
Fbex, the Catalan developer of the complex, sold the apartments in a video alluding to their “façades covered with an innovative aluminum material”, “hardly flammable or non-flammable”, before entering bankruptcy proceedings as a result of the 2008 crisis. .
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Latest news on the fire in a building in Valencia
The flames ran along that façade as if through a wick from an original source located on a floor on the seventh floor, caused by causes that have yet to be clarified.
Some neighbors talk about how it all started with a curtain that burned;
others, from a short circuit.
The group of kids who were right in the park opposite saw and recorded how the fire spread - "at full speed, upwards" - through those "plates or behind them", and how some neighbors called for help, desperate, from their balconies.
The flames at full speed, the dense black smoke and the wind that blew up to 60 kilometers per hour made up an explosive combination.
Incandescent fragments broke off from the plates, contributing to the spread of the fire and increasing the danger.
Firefighters, working on the Nou Campanar fire.
Monica Torres
In those moments of tension, several residents highlighted the work of the doorman, who notified numerous neighbors of the fire so that they vacate their apartments and helped those who were less mobile to get off.
She witnessed it and Rida told this newspaper, after her hasty escape, with just what she was wearing, from her house at Gate 83. There “there is nothing left,” she lamented before walking away excited.
The dealership of the high-end Chinese electric car firm ByD and a Tedy store have been saved from the most destructive flames, both located on the ground floor of the complex, which had a swimming pool and a small garden in the back that, together to the street, they have served as firebreaks so that the flames did not spread to other surrounding buildings.
The greatest relief of the terrible afternoon in Nou Campanar was experienced when the firefighters finally managed to rescue two neighbors who, some who were watching from below, identified as a father and a daughter, and others as a young couple.
In any case, they huddled on a balcony withstood the onslaught of the fire while they waited for the firefighters to make their way through the flames.
When they finally succeeded, the large crowd that gathered behind the security perimeter broke into loud applause that was soon mitigated by one of the various explosions coming from the burning buildings.
One person was saved by jumping from several heights onto a large mattress deployed by firefighters.
The Emergency team assists a neighbor. Mònica Torres
Hours passed.
A field hospital had already been set up, the number of volunteers with food and clothing continued to increase, and 36 affected residents had been offered shelter in hotels.
A space was also opened in the nearby State Reference Center for Psychosocial Care, assisted by professionals, to welcome relatives and friends of the deceased and missing, despite the fact that initially the authorities had only officially reported the existence of 13 injured.
They insisted on the need to be very cautious because the high temperatures and the still burning fire prevented access to the property.
The firefighters, who moved 22 crews and had the help of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), did not stop throwing water and inspecting the balconies and terraces, as well as the interior of the homes, with large spotlights and drones.
Bad omens abounded.
When a few minutes passed midnight and the flames continued to burn, although it seemed that there was nothing left to burn, Jorge Suárez, deputy director general of Emergencies of the Generalitat, appeared before the media, accompanied by the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, and the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, both from the PP.
Suárez gave the fateful news that four deaths had already been recorded, but he did not want to estimate the number of missing people.
The Minister of Science and general secretary of the PSPV-PSOE, Diana Morant, was also at the command post.
Minutes later, official sources from the Valencia City Council indicated that there were 19 missing in the Nou Campanar fire.
Emergency personnel work next to the burned-out building this Friday in Valencia.
Monica Torres
This morning the figures have changed.
The people who remain missing are between 9 and 15, numbers that continue to be reviewed.
The Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, assured this morning that there are residents who are foreigners and it will be more difficult to know their whereabouts.
Regarding the change in figures, the delegate insists that the National Police has 14, not 19, missing.
And municipal sources clarify that the decrease of five missing people compared to the information offered yesterday is because some erroneous data have been recounted and purified.
But they warn that this figure will vary.
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