Valencia: Spanish firefighters were battling a huge fire raging through a multistorey residential block in the eastern port city of Valencia on Thursday, the emergency services said.
Images showed flames and vast clouds of black smoke engulfing the building, with 22 teams of firefighters battling high winds to tackle the blaze, the 112 emergency services said.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the emergency services said seven people had been lightly injured: a minor, three adults and three firefighters, most of them suffering from smoke inhalation.
They said the fire started on the fourth floor and had rapidly spread.
Spain's TVE public television said there were more than 130 flats in the building which was 14 stories high, saying it had been "reduced to a skeleton" with a nearby building also consumed by the flames.
It said medics had set up a field hospital nearby.
"Please stay away from the area of the fire to let the emergency services do their work," Valencia's mayor Maria Jose Catala wrote on X.
Also on X, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he was "shocked by the terrible fire" and was in contact with the mayor and the region's leader "to offer whatever help they needed" and extending his condolences to everyone affected by the blaze.
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