3 Dead in Residential Building Fire in Spain

Three individuals, two adults, and a child, lost their lives in a fire that broke out in a residential building in Villajoyosa near Alicante in southeastern Spain, late Sunday night.

This incident comes nearly ten days after a fatal fire in the same region, according to authorities.

A police spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that emergency services were alerted at 02:13 GMT about a fire on the eleventh floor of a 24-story building in Villajoyosa.

The blaze led to the evacuation of 120 people, and 15 individuals with minor injuries were hospitalized after inhaling smoke.

Among those affected was a local police officer involved in the rescue operations. The three deceased victims were identified as two adults and a child by a spokesperson for the regional health authorities.

Firefighting teams extinguished the fire by 03:45, and residents were able to return to their apartments on Monday morning.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, as reported by the police to AFP.

This tragic event follows another significant fire in Valencia, the largest city in southeastern Spain, which claimed ten lives about ten days earlier.

That fire erupted on the afternoon of February 22 in a 14-story building housing 138 residential apartments and rapidly spread throughout the structure.

Experts have suggested that the insulating material used on the building's facade may have contributed to the rapid spread of the flames, similar to the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London in June 2017, which resulted in 72 deaths.

During a football match between Valencia and Real Madrid on Sunday evening, players observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the fire.

This incident is part of a series of fires in southeastern Spain, including a blaze in a nightclub in Murcia in October 2023 that killed 13 people.

Described as "very violent" by the Mayor of Murcia, the fire started in the early hours of October 1 at the "Fonda Milagros" nightclub, where all the victims' bodies were found, before spreading to two other clubs on the same premises.