The person missing after a building collapsed in Montreal North on Saturday afternoon was found lifeless under the rubble in the evening.
• Also read: Montreal North: Two people rescued after the ground floor of a building collapsed
Two injured men, one seriously, were rescued after a building collapsed in Montreal North on Saturday afternoon.
The 10-unit building also housed two businesses.
The Montreal Fire Department (SIM) technical rescue team was on scene to stabilize the structure.
The investigation was transferred to the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) and the CNESST.
There were five people inside when it collapsed.
Two of them refused to be taken into care.
According to the fire department, renovation work was being carried out in the building, which had already been damaged by a fire two years ago.
The accommodations were therefore uninhabited.
An expert comments on the possible causes of this event.
“It doesn’t happen like that. The reason this happens is because you have no plan, no engineering certificate, and no supervision of your work. It is clear that this is exactly what happened,” says Steeve Tremblay, occupational health and safety consultant.
“The witness says these people only spoke Spanish. Did anyone from the company that did the work take the time to explain in the language that workers understood the risks associated with their work?
It was the company’s employees who heard the noise caused by the collapse.
One of them spoke in front of the TVA Nouvelles camera.
“They were doing renovations. Yesterday morning they took out a lot of wood and cement blocks and in the afternoon we heard a bang like an earthquake. We went out. Someone went to warn the firefighters, but they had left. “We looked at the basement and saw the floor that had fallen down,” he says.