Rescuers in Marseille, France, continue to search the ruins for missing people, after the collapse of an apartment building in the center of the city yesterday, Sunday, and the discovery of two dead.
«There are hopes that any survivors will be found“, declared this morning the mayor of Marseille Benoit Payan from the scene of the tragedy and “as long as there is hope, we will not stop”. “If there are still survivors under this rubble, they must be kept (alive) at all costs,” he stressed, which is why firefighters are working with “surgical precision.”
City Fire Chief Lionel Mathieu confirmed the mayor’s comments, noting that “there are hopes that there are still some alive». “Great pain and suffering,” Mathieu had noted a little earlier, when the firefighters announced that they had been located two bodies in the ruins of the five-apartment apartment building which was located at number 17 Tivoli Street and which collapsed after a huge explosion.
Six people are still missing, while another, who lives in a nearby apartment building, has not been contacted still with his family. “Given the particular difficulties of the operation, the removal (of the bodies) will take time,” explained the rescuers, as there is a risk of collapsing neighboring buildings. Besides, the fire, which had broken out in the ruins, is now “under control”, but has not been completely extinguished.
Marseille prosecutor Dominique Lorance noted yesterday, Sunday evening that among the missing are “people of some age and a young couple of about 30 years». There are no children or minors, he had added. “The identification” of the first two dead can be carried out “in the afternoon or until tomorrow morning”, clarified the mayor of Marseille.
«Hell“, was the headline of the provincial newspaper La Provence. The newspaper’s entire front page was covered by a photo taken hours after the block of flats collapsed, showing firefighters on the rubble blocking the road in a cloud of smoke from the blaze that delayed rescue efforts for hours .
In Marseille, a city where drug-trafficking-related gun attacks have increased in recent weeks and claimed the lives of many young people from working-class neighborhoods, the collapse of this apartment building caused a new shock.
About 200 people have been forced to leave their homes in the neighboring apartment buildings for precautionary reasons. Associations of local parents and residents mobilized to offer accommodation, clothing and psychological support to those affected. The municipality has announced the provision of accommodation, while a reception center has been opened, where psychological support is provided to the relatives of the missing. The investigation into the cause of the explosion continues.
Source: APE-MPE, AFP
