“The fire spread upwards in a few minutes: the flames ran up along the aluminum panels of the facade,” said two 16-year-old boys who were in a park near the Valencia skyscraper when the fire broke out El Pais. According to initial reconstructions, the flames broke out on the fifth floor of the building, “from the curtains of an apartment,” another witness reported to Spanish media.
At least three people were taken out of the burning skyscraper in Valencia with symptoms of poisoning, while others were still trapped. This is reported by the Spanish television station RTVE and emphasizes that a father and his daughter who were stuck on their balcony were brought to safety. “There are screams and desperate people looking for relatives or friends” who were in the building, the media reported.
At least seven people were injured in the fire – reports El Pais -: one firefighter was treated for a fracture, two firefighters were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation, and four civilians, including a minor, for smoke inhalation. Emergency services report that 22 firefighters were at the scene, as well as 6 Samur units and 2 basic life support units. In the meantime, the municipality has activated the social emergency and emergency cooperation service. The Red Cross also intervened on site. The President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, and the Mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, are already in the area where the fire broke out in the Valencian district of Campanar (Valencia). The fire broke out in a fourteen-story residential building at the intersection of General Avilés and Maestro Rodrigo streets.
There are 138 apartments in the building
The fire was reported at around 5:30 p.m. and due to the strong westerly wind, the flames quickly spread from the fifth floor across the entire vertical of the 14-story building and spread to another adjacent building, also a new building, where firefighters were deployed trying to rescue residents from their balconies. At least two people were still trapped. There is currently no news of any victims. There are 138 apartments in the building. The Emergency Coordination Center of the Valencian Community has requested reinforcements from the National Emergency Center of Civil Protection, which has set up a field hospital while ambulances and resuscitation units have been mobilized.
Sánchez is “shocked by the terrible fire in Valencia.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is following the development of the fire that spread very quickly in a building in Valencia. “I am dismayed by the terrible fire that has broken out,” he wrote on The Efe agency reports whether there are any victims while the military emergency unit is already active on site.
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