Protest in Badalona against energy poverty

“It’s not a fire it’s murder” was one of the slogans shouted by 300 protestors in Badalona, according to the local police, who took part in a demonstration to remember the fatalities in an apartment fire in the Sant Roc neighbourhood on January 5, which left some 30 people injured.

Locals from the neighbourhood, with representatives of different communities, such as the Roma and the Pakistanis, went from Sant Roc to the city’s central Vila square to demand measures from the authorities and to protest energy poverty. Among those protesting were the former mayor, Dolors Sabaté, and former deputy mayors, Oriol Lladó and José Téllez.

In Catalonia, eight people died last year in house fires, and over 750 were injured in the 4,616 fire-related accidents recorded in 2018, a figure similar to 2017. The eight victims takes the toll of fatalities in fires to 64 in the past four years.

“The magnitude of these fires varies and fortunately many of them are not as serious as the one in Badalona,” said the head of the Catalan firefighters Operative Prevention Section, Carles Noguera. An electrical overload on the first floor is the hypothesis for the cause of the fire in Badalona. “Electrical overloads are, along with heating and cooking devices, the main causes of these accidents in flats,” said Noguera.