Eight months after the death of eight people in a similar tragedy, just a few hectometers away, seven people were lightly injured and 37 were relocated following the partial collapse of a building, hit by an explosion and a fire Saturday, in Marseille, the town hall announced in a press release published on the evening of Sunday, December 3.
“We were called around 11:45 p.m. for a fire” on the second and top floor of a building located at 50 boulevard Pardigon, in the 4th arrondissement of Marseille, the firefighters said during the night, immediately specifying that “ seven victims in relative emergency” had been taken care of by the emergency services.
Some 80 firefighters were mobilized to bring the fire under control. The residents of several buildings were evacuated from this Chutes-Lavie district, close to the heart of the city, to be brought to safety.
A school open to welcome evacuees
During the night, the mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan went to the site of the disaster, the exact causes of which had not yet been established on Sunday. The municipality announced that a school had been opened for the emergency reception of evacuees. In total, 37 people were relocated: 31 to the hotel by the city and six on their own, according to a press release from the town hall published Sunday evening.
After the disaster, the surrounding areas were cordoned off with marking tape and on Sunday morning, only a few pedestrians residing within the security perimeter were authorized to cross the tape. At midday, a construction machine came into action to remove the remaining sections of wall from the destroyed building, which were too unstable to be preserved. At the end of this operation, the firefighters had to work to flush out any embers smoldering under the rubble to formally extinguish the fire.
This new collapse is reminiscent of that of rue de Tivoli, at number 17, where eight people lost their lives on the night of April 8 to 9, in the collapse of a building caused by a leak of gas.