Huge fire rips through Spanish apartment building, killing four

Up to 14 were believed missing after the blaze, which an insurance expert said may have spread so rapidly because of the use of a plastic material on the facade, a comment evoking memories of the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017. Firefighters with masks and oxygen tanks worked their way through the charred building on Friday, looking for bodies or survivors hours after the blaze started on Thursday evening.

A huge fire ripped through a big apartment block in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, killing at least four people and gutting the building in strong winds that whipped up the flames. Up to 14 were believed missing after the blaze, which an insurance expert said may have spread so rapidly because of the use of a plastic material on the facade, a comment evoking memories of the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017.

Firefighters with masks and oxygen tanks worked their way through the charred building on Friday, looking for bodies or survivors hours after the blaze started on Thursday evening. The wind was so strong at times that it had pushed back the water being hosed by firefighters, a policeman said.

Visiting the scene on Friday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said residents "had lost everything in a matter of minutes in this terrible fire." Witnesses said the fire took only about half an hour to engulf the building in El Campanar, an affluent neighbourhood of Spain's third-largest city.

Panicked residents rushed to balconies to plea for help as burning embers fell to the ground. At least two people were rescued from their balconies on cranes. "I told my daughter and mother-in-law to leave, other people stayed inside," a resident called Adriana told Reuters.

Valencia's mayor, Maria Jose Catala, said four people had been confirmed killed and 15 had been hurt, six of them firefighters. FIRE SPREAD RAPIDLY

Emergency services said the fire began on the fourth floor but gave no cause. The building, comprising two towers linked by what its developers described as a "panoramic lift" had several dozen flats and was completed in 2008, officials said. It had 138 apartments, newspaper El Pais reported.

Esther Puchades, a representative of insurance inspection agency APCAS, told state broadcaster TVE that a lack of firewalls and use of the plastic material polyurethane on the facade would have contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze. A 2007 promotional video by the building's developer highlighted the "innovative material" used to clad the building's exterior, which passed "rigorous quality checks".

The spread of the 2017 fire in the Grenfell Tower block in west London that killed an estimated 80 people after an electrical fault was blamed on the use of highly flammable external cladding. The fire in Valencia follows a deadly blaze in October at a nightclub in the southern region of Murcia in which 13 people died.

Valencia has decreed three days of mourning and suspended the start of a month-long annual festival. Catala said 131 temporary homes were being prepared for residents and a regional official said they would receive money for daily costs and rent.

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