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Valencia mayor María José Catalá with residents of the fire-ravaged house and municipal employees during a moment of silence on Saturday.
1 / 2 Photo: José Jordan/AFP/TT
Silence fell over Valencia on Saturday as five minutes of silence were observed for the victims of the violent fire in a high-rise complex on Thursday.
Ten people died in the fire, which took a day to fully extinguish, and the bodies that have been found are believed to take a long time to identify.
– There are no words to describe the pain our city feels, and all of Valencia shares it in this moment of silence and respect, Mayor María José Catalá said in front of several hundred people gathered outside Valencia’s City Hall.
Catalá has declared three days of mourning in the city, and at the same time work is underway to investigate how the fire started and how it could spread so quickly. One theory is that the houses had highly flammable facade cladding.
Almost the entire complex with 138 apartments was engulfed in flames within half an hour.
– It was absolutely terrible. I live nearby and saw it all from the street. They have lost everything, those who live there, Concha Lopez told AFP.
The fire started at around 5.30pm on Thursday on one of the lower floors of a 14-storey building and spread to a nearby ten-storey building. Dramatic television images from the incident showed violent flames and black smoke billowing from houses and many residents pleading for help from their balconies.
15 people are being treated in hospital, including a seven-year-old girl and seven firefighters. None of them are considered to have life-threatening injuries.