Spain retirement home fire toll climbs to eight

The death toll from a fire that devastated a Spanish retirement home last week has risen to eight after a victim died in hospital on Tuesday, health authorities said.

Six elderly people initially died in the fire that began late last Tuesday at the retirement home in Moncada near the eastern city of Valencia. They were aged 67 to 95.

“One of the people who was hospitalised in a critical condition after the fire at the Moncada retirement home died this Tuesday,” a spokesman for the Valencia region’s health authorities told AFP.

A seventh person died in hospital on Sunday.

Six people remain in hospital.

The blaze left 14 people suffering from smoke inhalation, including some of the rescuers, and more than 70 people were evacuated.

Regional fire chief Jose Miguel Basset last week said the blaze broke out in a room on the first floor, adding that “survival there was impossible”.

Local media have reported that an electrical fault in one of the bedrooms could have caused the fire.