A firefighter looks into the rubble at ‘rue Tivoli’ after a building collapsed in the street, in Marseille, southern France, on April 9, 2023. “We have to be prepared to have victims,” the mayor of Marseille warned on April 9, 2023 after a four-storey apartment building collapsed in the centre of France’s second city, injuring five people, according to a provisional report. (Photo by CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP)
UPDATED MARSEILLE, France — Searchers on Monday recovered a third body from the rubble of a collapsed apartment in France’s Marseille, as rescue workers raced against the clock to find five people still missing.
More than 24 hours after a suspected explosion at the building, where residents reporting a strong smell of gas, dozens of searchers and dogs worked among the debris as a fire still smouldered underneath.
But the mayor of the Mediterranean port city said rescue workers were still optimistic they could find survivors.
“There is still hope, and as long as there is hope, we will not stop,” said mayor Benoit Payan, at the scene of the disaster.
Lionel Mathieu, the commander of the city’s fire department, said his team was waging a “battle against time”.
“The fire has not reached all parts, so there is hope that some people are still alive,” he said.
The fire at the site has made it hard for sniffer dogs to detect more victims or survivors.
Emergency workers had continued rescue operations through Sunday night into the early hours of Monday with the help of a crane and lights, but a persistent fire underneath the rubble hampered their work, making it difficult for firefighters to deploy sniffer dogs.
“Given the particular difficulties of intervention, the extraction (of the bodies from the site) will take time,” the fire department said in a brief statement announcing the bodies had been found.
“The judicial authority will then proceed to identify” the victims, it added.
Earlier on Sunday, before the discovery of the bodies, local prosecutor Dominique Laurens told reporters that eight people “were not responding to phone calls”.
Five people from neighboring buildings sustained minor injuries in the blast and collapse, which occurred around 12:40 am on Sunday (2240 GMT Saturday).
“Tonight, the pain and sorrow are great,” said Marseille mayor Benoit Payan in a statement.
“All services of the city, as well as the state, are still at this very moment fully committed to continue the search,” he added.
The cause of the explosion is still to be determined, but investigators are looking at the possibility it was the result of a gas leak.
More than 100 firefighters were battling the blaze in the ruins of the building, which was believed to have one apartment on each floor.
Multiple witnesses described the explosion to AFP.
“I was sleeping and there was this huge blast that really shook the room. I was shocked awake as if I had been dreaming,” said Saveria Mosnier, who lives on a street near the site in the La Plaine neighborhood.
“We very quickly smelled a strong gas odor that hung around, we could still smell it this morning,” she added.
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”.
Evacuation
Two buildings next to the destroyed property were severely damaged, with one collapsing later in the day without injuring any rescuers.
Almost 200 residents have been evacuated and 50 have requested to be urgently rehoused.
An aid centre for people looking for missing family members or loved ones has been opened in a neighboring district.
“A lot of families in the neighborhood are afraid,” said Arnaud Dupleix, the president of a parents’ association at the nearby Tivoli elementary school, which sprang into action to coordinate aid for those evacuated.
Housing Minister Olivier Klein is due to visit Marseille Monday, after Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Sunday.
In 2018, eight people were killed in Marseille when two dilapidated buildings in the working-class district of Noailles caved in.
That disaster cast a harsh light on the city’s housing standards, with aid groups saying 40,000 people were living in shoddy structures.
But authorities on Sunday appeared to rule out structural issues in the latest collapse.
“There was no danger notice for this building, and it is not in a neighborhood identified as having substandard housing,” said Christophe Mirmand, prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone region.
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First posted at 9:22 a.m.