UTILITY board Gas Natural has pledged to review all supply cuts due to non-payment after an 81-year-old woman died in Reus (Tarragona province).
Rosa lived alone and could not make ends meet on her pension, leading to her electricity being cut off two months ago.
She used candles for lighting, and one of these set fire to her mattress when she was asleep, destroying her home and resulting in her death.
She had not been able to pay her rent for the last 10 months of her life, reports Reus town hall.
Her tragic plight has led to uproar nationwide as power providers continue to make multi-million profits whilst thousands of householders are living without electricity because they cannot afford their bills.
A protest was staged in Reus after Rosa P.V.'s death was announced by the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca ('Mortgage Victims' Association', or PAH), with crowds chanting, “no more Rosas,” and “fuel poverty kills.”
They staged the demonstration outside the town hall, just a few metres from Rosa's flat above a row of designer boutiques and a sushi restaurant.
None of the 70-strong group knew Rosa personally and none of her family or friends attended.
According to the managing director of Gas Natural, “you can't blame utility boards for cases like this.”
Rosa's neighbours say they did not even know her, and never saw her.
“She was the lady from Flat B on the second floor,” said one resident in the three-storey block.
“We knew she was being attended to by social services, because one day they rang the wrong intercom.”
She was said to have been partially disabled and had lived mostly on her own, and had a 'dysfunctional family'.
Sometimes her adult granddaughter lived there, occasionally alone and other times with her boyfriend and his daughter, but Rosa had been living there on her own on the night of the fire, which broke out at 03.00 on Monday.
The council says it had not known her electricity had been cut off and that the utility firm had not let them know, 'as is their legal duty to do so'.
Although she had 'been using the social services since 2013', they were only aware that this department had been paying her water bill for the past year.
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