SPANISH survivors of the London tower-block fire say they have lost '41 years of memories' as well as their home.
Iván Costa Suárez says he and his parents Dorinda and José – originally from Galicia – were asleep when a Portuguese neighbour banged on their door.
They also had a telephone call from another family in the 24-storey block, whose flat was just 70 metres from the source of the fire and who had seen flames just outside their windows.
“It makes me want to cry – 22 years working here to make this a home, and it's destroyed in half an hour,” says Iván.
The three escaped by walking down the stairs from the 13th floor of the Grenfell Tower since, although the lift was working, they were afraid of becoming trapped.
They stopped briefly on the seventh floor to alert another Galicia-born family whom they are good friends with.
“When we got up and went to the lounge, we saw our kitchen in flames,” says Carmen Sánchez.
“We shut the door and left.”
Carmen and her husband José Vieiro also used the stairs to get out.
Fortunately, their daughter Vanesa was not at home at the time.
“Forty-one years. Memories of 41 years, a whole lifetime, were inside,” José Vieiro lamented.
“But at least we got out alive.”
The six of them have been given rooms by a family from the province of A Coruña (Galicia) living nearby.
Firefighters are still working on the devastating blaze, soaking areas that continue to billow smoke.
The death toll has risen to 17, with 78 injured, of whom 18 are in a critical condition.
Parents were seen throwing their children out of windows, and a baby whose mother hurled her from the 10th floor has survived.
Residents' associations have been complaining for years about serious safety issues in the block of mostly council or privately-rented flats, which was built in 1974 and renovated a year ago.
Prime minister Theresa May has suspended talks with the Northern Ireland-based Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) about forming a coalition government, and has announced a plan for inspecting similar buildings to be able to 'offer guarantees' to their occupants.
The community in the area – a deprived neighbourhood close to Notting Hill, West London – has rallied round, offering accommodation, food parcels and clothing.
One couple transferred 1,000 pounds (€1,194) to an appeal fund and handed out donations of 100 pounds (€119) each to different families 'to help them get through the next few days'.
Emergency services say they have 'never seen anything like it' in their lives, and a nurse attending the scene burst into tears during an interview on live TV.
A MAN declared dead at his home in the province of Tarragona was on his way to the funeral parlour when he turned out to be alive, according to police sources.
A NEW child protection law named after a British musician living in Spain has been approved in Congress and is set to be signed off by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, June 8.
