The mayor of Marseille, a city in southern France, has reported that two dead were recovered by rescue personnel from the wreckage of buildings that had fallen due to an explosion. Firefighters said in a statement on Monday that the victims will be identified by the legal system, and that they had encountered “special challenges” in their hunt for missing inhabitants. After the explosion on Sunday, which levelled two apartment buildings and partially collapsed a third, authorities reported nine people were missing. No one knows what caused the explosion yet.
On Monday, Mayor Benoit Payan expressed his sadness and suffering through a tweet. His heart goes out to “those who are suffering,” he added of the victims’ loved ones. Despite the lack of a break, “rescue and search activities are ongoing,” Payan added. More than a hundred firefighters are scouring a five-story apartment building, the mayor informed French media, in hopes of finding at least six individuals who are thought to be trapped within. Finding survivors is still possible, he added. A prosecutor stated that it took until Sunday afternoon for canines from the fire department’s canine unit to begin working due to the smoke and heat from the burning debris. The prosecutor said a gas explosion is one possible reason that has been brought up for examination. A historic district in the heart of Marseille, France’s second-largest city, collapsed just before 1am on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday). It happened less than a mile from the city’s historic harbor. Over 200 individuals have been forced to leave their houses.
Eight people were killed when two buildings in the heart of Marseille fell in 2018. Aid organizations estimated that 40,000 people in the city were residing in substandard homes before the tragedy. On Sunday, though, authorities seemed to rule out structural difficulties as a cause of the most recent fall. Prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone region Christophe Mirmand said, “There was no risk alert for this structure, and it is not in a neighborhood recognized as having inadequate housing.”
