A building in Marseille collapses, leaving eight people unaccounted for.
An explosion in Marseille, southern France, injured five persons and left eight more missing.
The reason of the explosion is yet unknown. It wrecked the building shortly after midnight on Sunday, and a nearby block of apartments partially collapsed a few hours later.
The mayor, Benoit Payan, stated that people were most likely killed.
Nearly 200 people were evacuated from surrounding buildings.
More than 100 firefighters were dispatched to put out the flames caused by the explosion. The fire blazed throughout the majority of Sunday, and police warned that it may continue for hours – but it appeared to be dying down by Sunday evening.
The fire hampered the hunt for the missing people, who included a “young couple” and “people of a particular age,” according to municipal prosecutors.
The extreme heat and dust have stopped search dogs from sifting through the rubble.
Mr Payan stated that “we must be prepared to have victims,” and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who visited the city on Sunday, told the media that he didn’t know whether the missing were alive or dead.
District prosecutor Dominique Laurens acknowledged to reporters that eight persons “were not responding to phone calls,” adding that it was currently impossible to determine the reason of the collapse.
Authorities, however, have predicted a gas leak.
‘It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard.’
According to one resident, the explosion was “unlike anything I’ve ever heard.”
Several reported hearing the ground tremble and smelling gas in the air.
“There was no danger alert for this structure, and it is not in a neighbourhood recognized as having inadequate housing,” said Christophe Mirmand, a local authority head in the Bouches-du-Rhone region.
In 2018, two buildings collapsed at street d’Aubagne, near Marseille’s old harbor, killing eight people. The accident exposed the city’s long-standing housing crisis and startled France.
Mr Payan stated on Sunday that the occurrence this weekend was not caused by structural issues in buildings and hence had “nothing to do with rue d’Aubagne.”
