Spain: Firemen worked throughout the day yesterday to control the fire which reduced the 35-storey Windsor Towers, Madrid's fourth-tallest skyscraper, to a blackened shell after a fire swept through the 106 metre office building.
Mr Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, the mayor of Madrid, described the situation as "still critical".
He said there was a grave danger that the remaining structure could collapse and fall on to adjoining buildings, particularly Spain's largest department store, El Corte Inglés, and the headquarters of BBVA bank.
Engineers said the fact that the Windsor was constructed from reinforced concrete, and not the more usual and lighter material of steel, meant that although the building was destroyed and most of its facade had fallen, the main internal core was still intact, in spite of temperatures of up to a thousand degrees.
The blaze, believed to have been caused by a short circuit, broke out on the 21st floor shortly before 11.30 p.m. on Saturday when the building was empty, apart from security guards who raised the alarm.
Within hours, the whole building was ablaze and huge chunks of flaming debris fell into the streets and hundreds of scraps of charred files and papers fluttered into the night.
Although firemen were on the scene within five minutes, the blaze spread rapidly.
Mr Javier Sanz, head of the Madrid fire brigade, explained that his men were forced to fight the fire from outside by hosing the skyscraper and adjoining buildings with tonnes of water from the ground, from cranes and from helicopters.
Firemen were still fighting the smouldering wreckage yesterday and said that it was likely the building would continue to burn until at least tonight.