Eight missing after buildings collapse in France’s Marseille

Residents are believed to be buried under the rubble as firefighters work to douse the flames following an explosion.

Eight people are not responding to calls and are said to be under the rubble of two buildings that collapsed in an explosion near the port of the southern French city of Marseille, local officials have said.

More than 100 firefighters worked against a ticking clock to put out the flames deep in the rubble of the five-story building, but more than 17 hours later “the situation has not yet stabilized,” Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens said on Tuesday. a press conference on Sunday evening. .

The collapse caused a fire that has hampered rescue efforts and investigations and has not been brought under control, she told a news conference.

Laurens said police have yet to confirm the apparent disappearance of a ninth person who lived in an adjacent building. Five people suffered minor injuries from the collapse, which occurred shortly before 01:00 (22:00 GMT).

Laurens said the cause of the explosion was not yet known.

Television footage showed clouds of smoke billowing from the rubble as firefighters attempted to put out the blaze, while trained dogs were deployed to locate victims.

“We have nothing, not even an identity card. We have lost everything,” said a man who only mentioned his name Roland, in an interview with the local newspaper La Provence.

He managed to get out of the building at 15 Rue de Tivoli with his wife and two children before it collapsed, along with an adjacent building. A third building partially collapsed.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who visited the site, said 30 buildings in the area had been evacuated.

Marseille mayor Benoit Payan said two buildings sharing walls with the collapsed building were partially knocked down before one later collapsed, another complication in the search and rescue operation. The buildings were among the evacuated structures.

Drones and probes have been used to examine the scene for signs of life. The burning debris was too hot for dogs on the fire department’s dog team to work until Sunday afternoon, though they were still bothered by the smoke, the prosecutor said.

“We can’t intervene in a very classical way,” Darmanin said during a morning visit to the site. He said the fire burned a few feet below the rubble and that both water and foam pose a threat to the survival of the victims.

An investigation has been opened into involuntary injury, at least initially to avoid possible criminal intent. A gas explosion was one of the traces to check, said Laurens, the prosecutor. But the probe’s launch was also limited by the heat of the fire.

Firefighters, with the help of urban rescue experts, worked all night and all day Sunday in a slow race against time. The delicate operation was designed to keep firefighters safe, prevent further damage to people who may be trapped in the rubble, and not endanger vulnerable nearby buildings, which have already partially collapsed.

Laurens, the prosecutor, said firefighters are “really in a complicated situation, dangerous for them”. Work is progressing, but with safety precautions, she said.

“We heard an explosion… a very strong explosion that startled us, and that was it,” said Marie Ciret, one of the evacuees. “We looked out the window at what was happening. We saw smoke, stones and people running.”

The collapsed building is located in a narrow street less than a kilometer (half a mile) from Marseille’s iconic old port, adding to a slew of difficulties for firefighters and rescuers.