A sixth body was found Monday under the rubble of the building collapsed the day before in Marseille, in the south of France, where the relief workers are trying in difficult conditions to find the people still missing.
In the pile of rubble, rescuers first found two bodies overnight from Sunday to Monday. Then two more, in the morning. And another two in the afternoon, said the firefighters and the Marseille prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation for “involuntary homicides”.
“Until the end, we will still believe in this ability” to find people alive under the rubble, “even if the chances are dwindling hour by hour, obviously”, declared Yannick Ohanessian, deputy mayor of Marseille in charge of security.
A hundred rescuers, helped by dogs, drones and thermal probes, are working tirelessly, with a fire smoldering under the rubble, to try to find the buried people.
Against the fire, the work is difficult: “it is a hearth buried deeply, difficult to reach with the lances”, explains the sailor-firefighter Adrien Schaller. “And you shouldn’t water too much, to avoid creating a kind of mud,” he continues. “Of course we hope to find pockets of survival, it’s a race against time”.
“The fire did not rage in all parts, there is hope that there are people still alive,” also said the commander of the Marseille firefighters, Vice-Admiral Lionel Mathieu.
“Given the particular difficulties of intervention, the extraction (of the bodies from the site) will take time”, specified the rescuers who work hard day and night.
The prosecutor of the Republic of Marseille Dominique Laurens had indicated Sunday evening that among the missing, there were “people of a certain age and a young couple in their thirties”. There would be no children or minors, according to her.
In a city marked in recent weeks by the proliferation of fatal shootings linked to drug trafficking which have claimed the lives of several young people from working-class neighborhoods, the collapse of the building, located in a residential area, close to streets with very lively cafes and restaurants , caused a new shock.
“I share the anguish of families and loved ones and I salute the efforts and perseverance of all the rescuers,” wrote the Cardinal of Marseille, Jean-Marc Aveline, in a message to the inhabitants.
About 200 people, including families, had to be evacuated from surrounding buildings as a precaution, and solidarity was organized. Associations of parents of students in the neighborhood and residents have mobilized to offer them accommodation, clothing and psychological help.
The town hall has organized accommodation: a reception center for families, with psychological assistance, for relatives of missing persons has been opened.
The investigation is continuing to determine the causes of the explosion. The gas is part of the leads, according to authorities.
“We quickly smelled a strong smell of gas, which remained and we smelled it again this morning,” Savera Mosnier, a resident of a nearby street, told AFP.
Even if Sunday’s drama awakened the images of a previous deadly collapse (eight dead) of two buildings, these unsanitary ones, in November 2018, rue d’Aubagne, in another district of central Marseille, the situation is quite different. Rue de Tivoli, “these are not unsanitary buildings at all”, underlined mayor, prosecutor and prefect.