PARIS A building collapsed in central Paris early Sunday (Saturday night in Brasilia). Marseilles, in which at least five people were injured. According to authorities, a fire prevented rescue teams from searching for other possible victims. “The cause has not yet been clarified,” said two police officers in the southern port city. France.
“Tonight at 12:40 p.m., the collapse of a building on rue Tivoli has caused part of other buildings to collapse on the same street,” said Benoît Payan, mayor of Marseille. According to him, five people have been injured so far and nine have remained unharmed, including two children. “There is fire in the rubble preventing us from sending dogs and teams to search under the rubble for possible victims,” he added.
According to Payan, the fire is “still active and extremely difficult to control”. “Firefighters are reviewing the best way to extinguish the fire minute by minute as there may be people living inside,” the mayor said.
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“There is a strong suspicion that an explosion caused the collapse,” Deputy Mayor Christophe Mirmand told Agence France Presse, adding that gas “could be a possible option”.
The streets around the building are cordoned off and several emergency services are on site. Dust could be seen in some of the surrounding streets. “It was huge like an explosion,” Gilles, a man who preferred not to reveal his last name but lives on a street perpendicular to the collapsed building, told Agence France Presse.
According to several users on social networks, there was an explosion that led to the complete collapse of the building on Tivoli Street. A huge security perimeter was set up due to the danger of the neighboring buildings collapsing.
The collapse of two buildings on Rue Aubagne, also in central Marseille, in November 2018 killed eight. These buildings were in a serious state of preservation./AFP