Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MARSEILLE

Marseille building collapse injures five, fire hampers search

An apartment building collapsed in an apparent explosion Sunday in the French Mediterranean city of Marseille, injuring five people, with authorities warning up to 10 victims could be under the burning rubble.

Published: 9 April 2023 09:22 CEST
Marseille building collapse injures five, fire hampers search
Rescue personnel work at the scene where a building collapsed in the southern French port city of Marseille early on April 9, 2023. Photo: NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP

“Everything shook, you could see people running and there was smoke everywhere, the building fell onto the street,” local grocer Aziz told AFP, asking that his family name not be used.

“We have to be prepared to have fatalities in this terrible tragedy,” Marseille mayor Benoit Payan told journalists at the scene in the central La Plaine district, where over 100 firefighters were battling an hours-long blaze.

It is unclear how many people were inside the fallen block — believed to have one apartment on each floor — at the time of the collapse at around 12:40 am (2240 GMT).

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on the scene that there were between four and ten people trapped under the rubble. “We don’t know if they’re alive or dead,” he told reporters, adding that
authorities were also yet to discover the cause of the “very large blast” that prompted the collapse.

Five people were injured in neighbouring buildings which were damaged by the collapse.

The intense heat as the building burns has kept search dogs from picking through the rubble, with Darmanin saying it would be “several hours… maybe even longer” before the fire was out.

“Time is of the essence” to discover possible survivors among the ruins, Marseille fire chief Lionel Mathieu said.

Rescuers’ task has been complicated by the partial collapse of one of the adjoining buildings, where eight people had to be brought down by ladder after taking refuge on a roof terrace.

Other buildings on the street were evacuated and around 180 residents put up in schools, while an aid centre for people looking for missing family members or loved ones has been opened in a neighbouring district.

“I am thinking of those affected and of their loved ones… thank you to the firefighters and emergency workers,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.

Cause of blast unclear

Deputy mayor Yannick Ohanessian told journalists at the scene that “several witnesses have reached us this morning to say there was a suspicious smell of gas”.

“It sounded like an explosion,” said Gilles, who lives near the fallen building, declining to provide his last name.

Eight were killed in Marseille in 2018 when two dilapidated buildings in the working-class district of Noailles caved in.

The accident cast a harsh light on the city’s housing standards, with aid groups saying 40,000 people live in shoddy structures.

But authorities appeared to rule out structural issues in the latest collapse, in a neighbourhood known for its bars and nightlife. “There was no danger notice for this building, and it is not in a
neighbourhood identified as having substandard housing,” said Mirmand.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Marseille district sees weary but wary relief in drug crackdown

French police have flooded the troubled Marseille district of La Castellane with forces since a crackdown on the drug trade started last month, and one mother told how she feels safer, for now at least.

Published: 11 April 2024 08:38 CEST
Marseille district sees weary but wary relief in drug crackdown

Before, drug dealers would hang around the housing estate, and up the road some had set up a roadblock of shopping carts and wooden pallets to keep authorities out.

“They took the carts and palets away. Now you no longer hear the shouting, the young guys loitering,” the woman said outside her son’s school, refusing to give her name for fear of reprisals.

“It’s a relief, especially for my 10-year-old son,” the woman added, standing at the foot of huge white housing blocks in La Castellane.

“He looks older, so the guys would always call him over on his way to school,” she said. “I was terrified they would recruit him.”

President Emmanuel Macron last month announced an “XXL” cleanup of drug trafficking in the southern port city and other towns across France where the lucrative drugs trade has caused death and uncertainty.

Turf wars for control of Marseille’s drug dealing left 49 people dead last year. Four were innocent bystanders.

Residents of La Castellane and La Paternelle, two of the worst-hit districts, say they are relieved by the clampdown.

But many fear insecurity will return when police leave. Almost all refused to give their names out of fear for their safety.

‘PR stunt’

In La Castellane, a father watched his two boys play near a mural of football superstar Zinedine Zidane, who was born in the district.

“It’s been calmer for three weeks,” he said, before hastily adding: “Drug dealers are none of my business.”

Sitting with friends outside a shop, another young man in a baseball cap said he was unimpressed.

“They came here to ‘clean up’, but those suffering the most are residents being slapped with fines” for car offences, he said.

“If you see someone selling hash, you walk away, that’s it,” he added.

“There are more worrying things here — the dirtiness, the rats.”

Among a dozen police officers at the entrance to the neighbourhood, one said certain residents would be unhappy because “some lived from” the drug trade.

Another said the clean-up had pushed dealers “elsewhere” or onto social media to make sales. Police say they have arrested around 850 people.

Authorities have promised to maintain pressure on gangs, but they will also be busy securing the city for the arrival of the Olympic torch on March 8 as part of a nationwide tour before the Paris Games this year.

One investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the clean-up operation was “a PR stunt”.

“It looks good to… deploy some blue uniforms. You can see it… calm has returned for the moment,” the investigator said.

“But it needs to be non-stop. And there needs to be a return to the basics… re-opening police stations in the housing estates — not just crackdowns.”

‘Nothing here’

In La Paternelle, four dealing points that once generated €200,000 a day have disappeared since January as part of a police crackdown before Macron’s announcement.

On the orange walls of a small apartment building, “menus” once advertising drugs for sale have been erased.

Just the word “Yoda” acts as a reminder of the gang that once fought for control of the area against its rival “DZ Mafia”. That caused many of the drug-related deaths in the city.

Onissa, a resident who said she had lived in the neighbourhood for 24 years, said the neighbourhood was getting more sleep.

“No one wakes up in the middle of the night anymore,” she said. “But we still are still wary.”

Many people have scars from Marseille’s drug battles. Onissa said she would never forget her son’s face after he saw a 35-year-old shot dead below their flat in May last year.

Not far off, two elderly women sat in the sun at the foot of an apartment block.

They recalled armed men in balaclavas suddenly appearing one afternoon in the middle of a children’s playground.

One of the women sat on her walking frame in a space where youth gang members once burnt wooden pallets.

But she said she wished there were children’s games on the nearby grass.

The owner of the only shop on the housing estate agreed. “A little life is coming back, but there is nothing here,” he said.

SHOW COMMENTS