(Istanbul) Twenty-one people survived the collapse of a building in Malatya, eastern Turkey on Tuesday, with no victims to be deplored after the search operations were completed.
“Search and rescue operations in the collapsed building in Malatya have ended. Thank goodness there are no casualties, ”Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu tweeted early on Wednesday.
Shortly before, the Turkish Deputy Minister of the Interior Ismail Catakli, dispatched to the site, had told the press that thirteen people had been extracted alive from the rubble by the rescuers and that eight others had managed to escape by them- same.
Five of those rescued were still hospitalized overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, without their vital prognosis being engaged, said the governor of Malatya province, Aydin Barus.
Mr. Barus had indicated earlier in the evening that two of the people extracted from the rubble had been hospitalized in intensive care.
A CCTV camera recorded the impressive scene, which took place shortly before 5 p.m. local time (2 p.m. GMT) on a busy street in central Malatya: a small building suddenly collapsed, giving off a huge cloud of dust. A car parked in front of the building takes off with a bang, while passers-by run as if to come to the aid of those trapped under the rubble.
An eyewitness told the Haberturk Channel that he heard “first a crackle” before the building collapsed. “It looked like Judgment Day. ”
More than 260 rescuers were dispatched to the scene, according to the government agency for natural disaster management (Afad), and the collapsed building was lit into the night to allow operations to continue.
The governor of the province of Malatya had asked at the beginning of the evening to the population and to the journalists to stay away from the site of the disaster, in order to allow the rescuers to capture any potential sign of life under the heap of concrete and metal. .
The causes of the collapse remain to be clarified but work was underway in the building, local media and officials reported.
The governor of Malatya province claimed that the collapse “happened because of it”.
Four people – the owner of the building and three people who carried out work – were taken into custody, the Malatya prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Malatya is a city of 450,000 inhabitants located 500 kilometers as the crow flies east of the capital, Ankara.
The building, located in the city center, had one floor and housed various shops including a restaurant and a café, Enver Kiraz, chairman of the local branch of the opposition CHP party, told AFP.