Two bodies were found in the ruins of a building that collapsed in the French city of Marseille due to an explosion, the fire department announced early Monday as it searched for eight other missing people.
“Given the particular difficulties of the intervention, the removal (of the bodies from the site) will take time,” the department said in a brief statement, confirming local press reports.
“The judicial authority will thus proceed to identify” the victims, he added.
“There is hope”: in Marseille, in the south of France, rescue teams tirelessly search the rubble for more of the missing, one day after the collapse of a building in the center of the city, in which at least 1,000,000 died two people.
“There is still hope” of finding “possible survivors,” the mayor of Marseille in southern France, Benoit Payan, said Monday morning at the scene.
The discovery of the two bodies comes almost 24 hours after an explosion caused the collapse of a four-story building at 17 rue de Tivoli, in the center of France’s second most populous city.
An officer said late Sunday that rescuers were searching for eight missing people who were presumed to be in the rubble.
“Tonight, the grief and pain are great,” Benoît Payan, mayor of this port city, reacted in a statement.
“We continue to do everything possible to carry out the rescue operations,” he continued and assured that “all city services, together with state services, remain fully committed to continue the search.”
The prosecutor of the Republic of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, had indicated on Sunday night that among the missing there were “people of a certain age and a young couple in their thirties.” There were no children or minors, Laurens said.
“I share the anguish of the families and relatives and I salute the efforts and perseverance of all the rescue workers,” Jean-Marc Aveline, Cardinal of Marseille, wrote in a message to residents. The “Christian community of Marseille, celebrating Easter, joins me in expressing our solidarity and compassion” with the people affected by this tragedy.
Some 200 people, including families, had to be evacuated from the surrounding buildings as a precaution, and solidarity events were organized. The associations of parents and teachers in the area and the neighbors mobilized to offer lodging, clothing and psychological help to the evacuees. The city council organized accommodation and a family reception center was opened, with psychological help, for the relatives of the disappeared.
The investigation continues to determine the cause of the explosion. The gas is evidently one of the possible causes, according to the authorities.
“We quickly perceived a strong smell of gas, which remained and which we still perceived this morning,” Savera Mosnier, a neighbor of a nearby street, told Afp.
Even if Sunday’s tragedy sparked images of a previous deadly collapse (eight deaths) of two buildings, unhealthy those, in November 2018, rue d’Aubagne, in another district in the center of Marseille, the situation is very different. On rue de Tivoli, “they are not at all unhealthy buildings”, stressed the mayor, the prosecutor and the prefect.
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