Noah of the Tower

Inma Lidón Valencia

Valencia

Updated Saturday, February 24, 2024-01:37

  • Tragedy Death toll rises to nine in the fire that devastated a building in Valencia

  • Live Fire in a building in Valencia, last minute live

Marta

and

Ramón

knew they only had a few minutes.

Locked in a bathroom with their two small children,

Víctor

, just over two years old, and

Carla

, just a few days old, they decided to make the last calls.

When the smoke was already seeping under the door and beginning to invade the entire room, this young Valencian couple said goodbye to their family over the phone.

The devastating fire that devastated a residential complex in the

Campanar neighborhood

is already one of the worst tragedies in memory in

Valencia

, with at least nine fatalities.

Ramón, Marta, Víctor and Carla were the first four to identify themselves.

Their bodies were detected by the firefighters' drone on the same Thursday night, hours after the fire started on one of the middle floors of one of the 14-story buildings, around 5:30 p.m.

While the firefighters tried in vain for hours to put out the flames from the outside, amid screams from neighbors waiting to be rescued from their balconies, the horror was also experienced within the hundred apartments that make up this urbanization in Valencia.

In one of these apartments, the entire family died of asphyxiation after locking themselves in a bathroom.

"They died of asphyxiation in the bathroom while she was saying goodbye to her mother on the phone," a neighbor of the complex who knew this family said yesterday through tears.

"They were talking until the signal went out."

According to her own neighbors, Marta was still recovering from the cesarean section she underwent less than two weeks ago.

It was a complicated birth, so she had been at home for days without going out much.

"They were polite and very discreet, but lately they were worried about her recovery after the cesarean section."

Ramón, as a building engineer, was aware of the danger they faced locked in the bathroom and seeing how the smoke and flames surrounded them.

He told that to his father and also to one of the friends that he had made around

Levante UD

, a team of which he was a staunch supporter.

So much so that the first thing he did when Víctor was born was register him as a member and get him a subscription.

After that call, his friends could no longer contact him.

According to what they tell

EL MUNDO

, they hoped that communications had failed or the battery had run out.

His plans were to meet this Saturday at his usual bar and then go to the Ciutat de València to watch the game against

Andorra

.

Some of his acquaintances describe him as a passionate granota linked since he was 15 to the

Penya Tótil

, a collective protesting the historical memory of Levantineism.

He helped design the shield and some of the banners even though his training had led him to be responsible for occupational risk prevention, quality and the environment in a demolition and industrial scrapping company.

In the case of this Valencian family, they tried to save themselves from the fire by locking themselves together in the bathroom, where they apparently tried to protect themselves from the smoke and heat of the flames with wet towels that they placed under the door.

It was in vain, because the firefighters were only able to rescue a couple who managed to hold on for hours on one of the balconies.

The other neighbors who were saved managed to do so because they were able to leave the building in the first minutes of the fire, when the fire had not yet devoured the interiors and the stairs were passable.

Everyone, yes, has been left homeless.

But yesterday the pain was visible especially in the

Sant Pau kindergarten

, where little Victor was enrolled and where the news soon broke that he was one of the victims.

The shock was such that the rest of the families needed psychological support when they heard the news.

Sources from the

Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community

confirmed early yesterday afternoon that the judicial commission had proceeded to remove the remains of five fatalities, although the

Government Delegation

later confirmed that the deceased numbered nine. .

Now the corresponding autopsies will have to be carried out and the necessary procedures for his identification carried out.

In this sense, the National Police Corps has set up several points in the city, including the

Tourism Center

(CDT) located on Paseo de la Alameda, to collect information and

DNA

samples from relatives of missing persons to allow their identification. location and identification.

The court of Valencia has opened proceedings to investigate the causes of the Campanar fire and has decreed the secrecy of the proceedings.