Valencia fire: Nine bodies found as Spanish police search destroyed apartments

Firefighters and forensic authorities in Spain said that nine bodies were recovered from the rubble of a 14-storey residential complex after it was gutted by fire in Valencia.

Officials had previously said ten were killed, but later said one person was missing.

Cladding attached to the building's exterior as well as strong winds are being blamed for the building catching fire within minutes.

Officials refused to answer questions about the cause of the fire.

Mourning will be observed for three days.

The fire is believed to have broken out on the fourth floor of the larger of the two 14-storey buildings, engulfing it within minutes and then spreading to the neighboring building.

Firefighters were unable to reach higher than the 12th floor as the flames burned at a terrifying rate through a layer of cladding attached to the building under a very thin layer of aluminum.

The College of Industrial Technical Engineers in Valencia said that was one of the possible causes of the fire, along with strong winds and high temperatures in Valencia on Thursday evening.

“the reason [building] “It burned down very quickly because of this type of cladding,” said Esther Bouchadis, vice-president of the college, who said she had previously inspected the building.

Although the aluminum-clad panels were not considered combustible, this type of cladding was permitted under building regulations at the time of construction, which was completed in 2008, but has since been banned.

But there has been no program to remove the banned cladding, which happened in the UK after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, where the process continues.

The charred shells of two adjacent buildings in the Campinar neighborhood were all that remained as investigators searched inside.

First, on Friday, they had to use drones until the temperatures dropped. Wisps of smoke can still be seen rising from the tops of destroyed residential buildings.

As the scale of the tragedy was confirmed, stories emerged of individual heroism as flames engulfed the facade of the building, leaving residents trapped.

One caretaker, a man named only Julian, was widely praised for rushing from door to door as the fire raged in an attempt to get people to safety.

A resident named Manuel said that he was at home in the apartment building when he saw the fire spreading.

“When I saw the flames passing through the metal sheets, I told my mother and the neighbors inside who didn't know. We all went down the stairs,” he told Spanish television.

He added that within 10 to 15 minutes they became surrounded by a black cloud.

Among the 15 injured were a number of firefighters, and by Friday evening, two of them remained in hospital, although their lives were not in danger.