At least five people were injured in the collapse of a four-storey building in the center of Marseille on Sunday.
“At 00:04 (23:00 in Lisbon), a building on Rua Tivoli collapsed and in the fall it dragged part of the neighboring buildings with it” on the same street, the mayor of the second French city told journalists.
| URGENT: A 4-storey building collapses in Marseille, at least 2 dead and several missing. There’s a fire on the mess.
pic.twitter.com/qbtaFSvaXJ– Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) April 9, 2023
“At the moment, a fire that broke out in the rubble prevents the sending of dogs and teams to search for possible victims,” added Benoît Payan.
“We have to prepare for casualties,” the mayor said, specifying that five people from neighboring properties were injured.
The fire “is still going on and is extremely difficult to control,” he said.
“We have about a hundred men on the ground, the priority is obviously to extinguish the fire and clear the debris to find people who may be trapped under the rubble,” said the vice admiral of the Marseille marine fire brigade.
Adjacent buildings were evacuated for safety reasons and the streets around the building were closed off.
“The cause of the collapse has not yet been determined,” police, fire and city officials said.
In November 2018, eight people died when two dilapidated buildings collapsed in another part of this city (south), where 40,000 people live in slums, according to non-governmental organizations.
Source: DN
