CATASTROPHEFRANCE
France: 2 bodies found after building collapse
3 hours ago3 hours ago
The corpses have been found in an ongoing rescue operation after a building collapse in Marseille. More than 17 hours since the collapse “the situation is not yet stabilized,” Prosecutor Dominique Laurens said.
https://p.dw.com/p/4PraT
Two bodies have been found in the rubble of a building that exploded and collapsed in Marseille, authorities said Monday, as rescue efforts to search for those still missing continues.
“Given the particular difficulties of intervention, the extraction (of the bodies from the site) will take time,” the fire department said in a statement, news agency AFP reported.
“The judicial authority will then proceed to identify” the victims, the statement said.
The residential building in the central La Plaine district of France’s second-largest city came crashing down after a blast that occurred shortly before 1 a.m. local time, (0000 UTC/GMT) on Sunday.
Marseille mayor Benoi Payan said rescuers have not given up hope of finding survivors.
“There is still hope, and as long as there is hope, we will not stop,” Payan said at the scene of the incident.
He said emergency workers were carrying out a “surgical” operation at the site, to “protect at all costs” any potential survivors.
Still a risk of another collapse
According to Payan, two neighboring buildings had also collapsed partly and a third one was at risk of doing so following the explosion that resounded in other neighborhoods.
Over 100 firefighters were working against time to extinguish the flames deep within the rubble in a difficult rescue effort aimed at not harming people that may be buried underneath and not compromising vulnerable buildings nearby.
However, more than 17 hours since the explosion “the situation is not yet stabilized,” Marseille Prosecutor Dominique Laurens said at an evening press briefing on Sunday.
Laurens had earlier told the media that eight people from the building “were not responding to phone calls.”
The cause of the explosion is yet to be known but investigators are looking at the possibility it was the result of a gas leak.
dvv/jsi (AFP, AP)
