Unprecedented mobilization in Valencia to help more than 400 people who have lost everything due to the fire in the building in the Campanar neighborhood. A mobilization that includes public institutions – Government, Generalitat Valenciana and City Council –, private companies and insurance companies and, also, social groups that have worked from the first hour to provide coverage for the effects of a tragedy that has caused ten deaths and generated alarm about the materials with which the façade of the building charred by the flames was made.
The priority now is twofold: to identify all the fatalities, for which DNA evidence is being compared, and to relocate all the people, including many families, who have been left homeless.
The Valencia City Council bears the weight of the operation. The appliances are already in place, and the 131 homes that will be offered to families are expected to be ready by the end of the week. A neighbor warned on Saturday that on February 29, next Thursday, they would have to leave the hotel where up to 114 people were staying this weekend – 99 adults and 15 minors – an extreme that the City Council denied at a time of certain uncertainty. about the future of those who have been left homeless. “It can be extended as long as necessary, although the homes will be at the end of the week,” sources from the City Council clarified to La Vanguardia.
Municipal workers are accelerating the placement of furniture and appliances, as well as water and electricity installations. The priority is families with children or with a "special" situation, as reported yesterday by the mayor, María José Catalá. The municipal corporation has also set up a municipal office to manage “transverse aid”, in the words of the mayor, to which 150 applications have already been submitted. Psychologists have been made available to those affected for personal attention. The psychologist of the Valencia City Council and head of the Primary Care section, Vicente Martínez, commented yesterday that these people are in “a phase of mourning” and “are assimilating what has happened.”
Another objective is to advise families on legal matters. To this end, the Valencia Bar Association has made its services available to families to help them deal with problems such as mortgage management. In this regard, experts consulted told this newspaper yesterday that everything will depend on whether there are judicial responsibilities, the response of the financial entities with which the mortgages were contracted and the insurance policies of each company.
On the other hand, apart from the private insurance that refers to the content of each home, the building – made up of two towers of 9 and 14 floors, and with 143 homes – has an insurance policy worth 26,511,540, 32 euros for the building and another 31,266 euros for the community furniture.
The contract for building and home insurance is signed between the community of owners and the Mapfre company and has a validity date of February 1, expiring on February 1, 2025, according to a document to which Efe had access. It also specifies that the insurance includes fire coverage and that the building, built in 2008, has a “high” construction quality.
The owners, many of whom were able to collect their cars from the garage of the damaged property yesterday, now face a long process that can be prosecuted. In fact, they have already begun to organize. They held a meeting with the City Council on Saturday afternoon, and yesterday some requested that the incident be declared a “catastrophic area”, a measure that would help expand the economic coverage of insurance companies as the State would be responsible for the costs. repair. There are a total of 138 owners, according to the municipal census, and they are the ones who are currently waiting for the aid to materialize.
This realization can come today. The Consell de la Generalitat Valenciana will hold an extraordinary plenary session exclusively to approve a package of economic and social aid for all the families of the damaged building. The idea, according to sources from the Generalitat, is to offer “quickly and efficiently” resources that allow personal activity to be resumed to the extent possible.
In parallel, the wave of solidarity in the neighborhood mobilized many neighbors willing to help and welcome those affected. There were many voices that considered that what happened in that building means that the façade was made with flammable materials, as this newspaper has been explaining. “People are very indignant, let's hope that the whole truth is known,” said Patricia, in reference to the judicial investigation that has been launched. Monica, who runs the pharmacy located in front of the burned towers, also remembered having spoken with some of these families "and they feel a lot of anger, what has happened to them is something extraordinary and heads must roll if things were not done right."
Valencia wants to overcome the duel. But to achieve this, the identification of the bodies must first be completed and the funerals celebrated. There is already talk of a tribute mass in the cathedral. Subsequently, the situation of each family and the solutions that can be adopted in each case will have to be audited in accordance with the aid activated. Finally, the judicial investigation, which will be long, will determine whether those affected can have a truthful explanation of an accident that, perhaps, could have been radically reduced if the materials had been adequate.
