Paris (EFE) people are still missing.
The latest victims were confirmed by the French Secretary of State for Housing, Olivier Klein, in statements to the media while visiting the scene of the incident with the mayor of Marseille (south of France), Benoît Payan.
“The search is carried out prudently because the hope of finding survivors is still present. Firefighters carry out extremely meticulous work. It is a long, difficult job,” Klein explained.
The damaged property is located at number 17 on Tivoli street and the collapse, which occurred at around 12:40 p.m. (23:40 GMT) at night between Saturday and Sunday, also affected the adjoining buildings.
That same day, the rescue tasks had been greatly hampered by a fire in the remains of the building.
The Marseille prosecutor, Dominique Laurens, had indicated in a press conference on Sunday afternoon that there were up to eight people who “do not respond to calls”, all of them inhabitants of number 17.
The disappearance of a neighbor from number 19, which also partially collapsed, was also suspected, but this Monday her safe and sound whereabouts were confirmed.
The main hypothesis is that the collapse was caused by an explosion, possibly due to a gas leak.
The collapse initially affected 33 residents, of whom 6 had to be taken to the hospital. Five were in a state of “relative severity”, as detailed by the mayor of Marseille, and another elderly person had to be admitted due to being in a state of shock.
Subsequently, the need to evacuate up to 32 properties in the area, for security reasons, left just over 160 evacuees.
The event aroused a strong commotion in Marseille, a city that already suffered the collapse of two old buildings in 2018 with a balance of eight fatalities.
Those events also uncovered a serious housing crisis due to the poor condition of many buildings in the city, forcing the transfer of just over four thousand residents.
On this occasion, the local authorities have ensured that the building was not in poor condition.