Valencia fire: Ukraine refugee describes escape from building inferno

Gala Kotova fled the war Ukraine two years ago

A Ukrainian refugee has described how she and her young son escaped as a massive fire engulfed a tower block in the Spanish city of Valencia.

Gala Kotova, who fled the war in her country two years ago, told the BBC how she put on whatever she could find, grabbed her nine-year-old son and their passports and ran out into the street.

"Everything was burning really fast, and the wind helped to spread the fire along the building." she said.

Nine people are known to have died.

A further person is missing after the blaze ripped through two connected apartment blocks in the neighbourhood of Campanar. Experts have suggested that cladding on the outside of the building could have been a factor in enabling the fire to spread rapidly.

"I was in the terrace speaking on the phone and I noticed the smoke. It was getting more and more intense," said Ms Kotova.

She said she called the concierge, who didn't know about the fire at that point, because her Spanish was not good enough yet to call the fire brigade.

Then she grabbed her son and ran.

She told the BBC she felt lucky to have seen the fire early and escaped but now faced the daunting prospect of rebuilding her life for a second time.

"I live alone with my child here and I am the only person who can rebuild from scratch something that we just started to rebuild after we left Ukraine," she said.

Several Ukrainians reportedly lived in the building.

Dymitro Hambarov told El Mundo newspaper that he and his partner saw some smoke on the eight floor after 17:00 local time (16:00 GMT) and that the whole building was on fire within 10 minutes.

"We arrived in Valencia escaping the bombs in Ukraine and now a fire has left us with nothing" Mr Hambarov told the newspaper.

• Did cladding help Valencia fire spread? What we know

Ms Kotova said local authorities had also offered help, including transport and hotel accommodation for people to stay in temporarily.

And support from her compatriots had been a huge relief, she added.

"There are lots of Ukrainians in Valencia and now there is already a group chat with 500 people who offered help," she said.

She became emotional when she saw a spreadsheet had been set up to help match people's needs with donations, she said.

"Escaping the war, trying to get away from it, the consequences are still catching [up with] us," she said.

"[That] we are strong enough to unite and to support each other, I was truly amazed with that."