More than 100 firefighters worked for an hour to rescue up to 10 people after a building collapsed in the French port city of Marseille.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said at least four people were known to be living in the collapsed building and as many as 10 were possible, although persistent flames and fear of more collapse prevented rescuers from searching for victims 15 hours after the blast. .
“We cannot intervene in a very classical way,” Darmanin said when he was at the scene, 11 hours after the five-story building collapsed, just before 1 a.m. The fire was burning a few meters under piles of rubble, and both water and foam represented a survival risk for the victims.
He said no one was killed or what caused the explosion.
Firefighters, assisted by city rescue personnel, worked through the night and into Sunday afternoon in a slow-motion race. The precautionary measure is aimed at keeping firefighters safe, preventing further injury to people who may be trapped in the debris, and not damaging nearby vulnerable buildings. About 30 buildings in the area were evacuated, Darmanin said.
“We heard an explosion…a very loud explosion that made us jump, and that was it,” said Marie Siret, one of the evacuees. “We looked out the window. We saw smoke, rocks and people running.
The collapsed building is located on a narrow street in the center of Marseille, adding to the difficulties for firefighters and rescue workers.
The intense heat made it impossible to send to the dog teams. Robots were reportedly being deployed. A crane was brought in to clear the debris and firefighters were seen on TV video at one point dealing with parts of the wreckage in a nearby apartment building as plumes of smoke rose into the sky.
Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan said two buildings that shared walls with the wreckage partially collapsed before one was later entered. Six people were hospitalized.
A dog from the firefighters’ canine unit was seen sniffing the debris, apparently on a building next door to the cave-in.
“We are trying to put out the fire while we are waiting for the lives of the victims in the rubble,” Marseille fire brigade chief Lionel Mathieu said in a televised briefing.
Mayor Payan said: “Firefighters are determining the best way to put out the fire every minute.
“We have to prepare ourselves to find victims,” he lamented.
An explosion was a “probable” cause of the building’s collapse, Payan said, but stressed that without a later investigation, “no conclusions can be drawn.”
The ruined building is located in an old quarter in the center of France’s second largest city. The sound of the explosion echoed through other neighborhoods. Nearby roads are closed.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Bourne tweeted their thoughts to the victims and thanked the firefighters.
In the year In 2018, two buildings collapsed in the center of Marseille, killing eight people. Those buildings were not well maintained – not the condition of the building that collapsed after an explosion on Sunday, the interior minister said.
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Elaine Ganley reports from Paris.
FILE PHOTO: Firefighters work after a residential building collapsed early Sunday, April 9, 2023, in Marseille, southern France. Photo credit: AP Photo
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Topics France
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