six dead in the collapse of a building in Marseille

“Four bodies have been found, they are macabre and difficult discoveries,” said the Minister of the City and Housing, Olivier Kleinat a press conference held at the scene of the tragedy.

The first two bodies had been extracted Sunday night from the rubble of the building collapsed at 17 Tivoli Street, in the center of the city. The third and fourth bodies were extracted early Monday, while the last two were found in the afternoon.

An investigation was launched on Monday “involuntary manslaughter”.

The building suddenly collapsed after a huge explosion and two people are still missing. “There is still hope” of finding possible survivors, the mayor, Benoit Payan, said today. However, Deputy Mayor Yannick Ohanessian admitted that “the chances are obviously getting smaller by the hour.”

“Given the particular difficulties of the intervention, the extraction [de cuerpos del lugar] It will take time,” said rescuers, who are working day and night in especially difficult conditions to try to find other victims of the collapse.

The public prosecutor of the Republic of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, had indicated on Sunday that among the missing were “people of a certain age and a young couple in their thirties.” It is believed that there are no children, nor minors, she said.

Meanwhile, the investigation continues to determine the cause of the explosion. Gas is one of the cluesaccording to the authorities.

“We quickly perceived a strong smell of gas, which remained and which we still perceived this morning,” Savera Mosnier, a resident of a nearby street, told AFP. Some 200 people, including families, had to be evacuated from the surrounding buildings as a precaution.

Sunday’s tragedy recalls the collapse of two unhealthy buildings in November 2018 that left eight dead in another district in the center of Marseille, although the mayor, the prosecutor and the prefect stressed that in this case the causes are different.