BLAZE AGONY
Valencia apartment death toll rises to 9 as videos show terrifying speed flames spread in Grenfell-style disaster
At least 13 people are still missing after a race against time to save residents from the block
AT least nine people have been confirmed dead after a horror inferno engulfed a Valencia apartment block in just 14 minutes.
Harrowing footage captured the moment the vicious fire first broke out before the lightning-fast blaze ripped through the flammable cladding, spiralling into a massive inferno.
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The horror fire broke out at 5.30pm yesterday at two residential tower blocks in the Campanar neighbourhood of Valencia, Spain.
At least nine have been confirmed as dead, which includes a young couple and their three -year-old boy and 15-day-old baby girl, El Diario Vasco reports.
Officials earlier said 10 had been killed, but later clarified one was missing, alongside thirteen others.
In a chilling disaster that echoed London's Grenfell Tower tragedy, firefighters were no match for the blaze as it tore through 142 homes.
The death toll is expected to rise sharply once emergency crews can access the smouldering building.
Although the investigation behind the cause of the fire is ongoing, videos captured each stage of the blaze from the first moment flames were roaring out of a home on the seventh floor at 5.37pm.
Three minutes later and strong winds had helped fan the flames through the balcony and into the home below.
Just 11 minutes later and the fire had blazed right through the left-hand side of the apartment block at 5.51pm, with over nine apartments absorbed by the fast-spreading inferno.
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At 6.17pm, the first building was entirely ablaze and the inferno was now raging at the next door tower block.
Horrifying footage taken at 6.22pm showed both buildings hidden behind a fiery cloud of smoke and ash as the blaze had swept through every home in its path, destroying everything.
Fourteen people were treated for injuries - including a seven-year-old child and six firefighters - and 12 of them were taken to hospital, emergency services said.
It comes as...
- Blaze started on seventh floor of a 14-storey residential building in city's Campanar neighbourhood
- Rapid spread of fire has been blamed on highly flammable cladding
- At least six have died and 13 people are still missing - with firefighters saying none are expected to be alive
- Valencia's mayor says foreigners were inside the building - including the Ukrainian couple who escaped
- Hero janitor went door-to-door to save neighbours after fire alarms failed to sound
- Three days of official mourning will be declared
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The 14 people still missing include a young couple and their children aged two-years-old and two-months-old - with firefighters saying none are expected to be alive.
Foreign nationals were also living inside the apartment block.
Ukrainians Dymitro and Oksana who fled Putin's war for a safer life Valencia, are now homeless after their fourth-floor flat went up in flames.
"We arrived in Valencia escaping the bombs in Ukraine and now a fire has left us with nothing," Dymitro said.
Esther Puchades, deputy head of Valencia’s Industrial Engineers Association, blamed the quick spread of the fire on the building's highly flammable polyurethane cladding.
The fears of polyurethane cladding fuelling the ferocious fire recalled the 2017 tragedy at Grenfell Tower in London.
The fire at a 24-storey high-rise in west London killed 72 people - with the blaze spreading rapidly due to the highly combustible cladding on the block's outside walls.
Future footage of the disaster filmed from the ground showed helpless residents standing on their balconies waving for help as flames and black smoke billowed around them.
Firefighters attempted to splash the blackened skeleton of the building with water but the inferno refused to be contained.
The top of the building - made up of two towers linked by a "panoramic lift" - appeared to crumble as bright orange flames engulfed dozens of apartments.
In one clip, an emergency responder standing at the top of a tower crane looked to be reaching for someone who was trapped.
In another, a firefighter jumped from the first floor of the burning block onto a mat deployed by emergency services.
'Great pain'
After the death toll rose to four, President of the Valencian Government Carlos Mazón said it was with "great pain what we already feared is confirmed".
Catalá, Valencia's mayor, said the city council would decree three days of official mourning.
She added: "There are no words that describe the enormous pain that the city of Valencia is feeling right now."
Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez said he was "dismayed by the terrible fire".
"I want to convey my solidarity to all the people affected and recognition to all the emergency personnel already deployed at the scene."
One woman who escaped the burning building told ABC Spain that no alarms went off and the diffuser sprinklers didn't come on after the flames took hold.
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"My husband told me that there was a lot of smoke and we went out into the hallway," she said.
"Then we have seen people running with their children... Not a single alarm has sounded nor have the diffusers worked."
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The Grenfell Tower tragedy
THE blaze which tore through Grenfell Tower in West London left more than 70 dead in June 2017.
A large fire broke out just after 1am on June 14, 2017.
It is believed to have started on the fourth floor, before it quickly spread to the whole building.
At least 350 people were thought to be inside when the blaze began and some were still trapped hours later.
Desperate residents were heard screaming for help and horrified witnesses said they could see people waving sheets out of the windows, with some jumping from the building.
Police later confirmed 72 people died in the fire.
Cladding was fitted to Grenfell Tower as part of a £9million refurb completed in May 2017.
The fire was started by an electrical fault in a refrigerator on the fourth floor of the building.
The blaze spread rapidly up the building to all floors - accelerated by dangerously combustible aluminium composite cladding and external insulation.
Just two months before the fire, London's Fire Brigade warned all 33 councils in the capital about the risks of cladding on tower blocks.
An inquiry into the disaster took evidence over four-and-a-half years, and its final hearings were in November 2022.
In November 2023, the official findings from the inquiry were delayed again.
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