Four dead after the collapse of a house in Marseille «kleinezeitung.at

In the ruins of collapsed houses in Marseille, a fourth body was discovered. It's a woman, AFP news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the prosecutor. Previously, two men and one woman had already been discovered in the rubble of homes in trouble. Many people are still missing.

22h12, 6 November 2018

Two dilapidated houses collapsed Monday morning in the center of the southern port of France. One of them is inhabited. While the inhabitants were missing, the government even feared "five to eight" victims, said Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

In Marseille, the authorities were scandalized and learned that the buildings were in a deplorable state. On the site of the disaster near the Old Port of Marseille, 80 firemen and 120 police with search dogs were in service. The Interior Minister, Castaner, said during a visit to Marseille that he was "not optimistic" about the possibility of finding survivors, as there was little chance that There are gaps in the rubble.

This is also due to the unfortunate development of the rescue work: first, Monday, two buildings collapsed, like card game houses, considered to be in trouble – including an inhabited house. When the firefighters then used an excavator, a third building partially collapsed, empty for years. The rubble of this house, in the words of Castanere, stuck the remains of the first two collapsed houses.

The head of state, Emmanuel Macron, badured the people affected by the "solidarity of the whole nation". At the same time, the authorities were strongly criticized, because we know that many buildings in Marseille are in poor condition. The prominent leftist politician and former presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, complained that "the homes of the poor" have collapsed – "and this is not a coincidence".

Residents report huge problems with the structure of the building. A 25-year-old philosophy student said that cracks had repeatedly occurred in one of the buildings and that the hall had collapsed in 2017. After the repairs, the management of the property announced that the problem was solved.

For several days, the doors of several apartments had been extremely difficult. "I was afraid to become a prisoner in my own apartment," said the young woman. She had already left home on Sunday.

The city administration sees the disaster in the context of storms: "This dramatic accident could be caused by the heavy rains that have fallen on Marseille in recent days," said 79-year-old mayor Jean -Claude Gaudin.

The administration has secured a hundred people from neighboring homes. Since 2011, many renovations took place in the center of Marseille, but they stagnated again and again. According to a 2015 government report, about 100,000 people live in buildings in the port city endangering their health or safety.