As many as
eight people might have died in the southern French city of Marseille in two
building collapses, officials said Tuesday after the first body was pulled out
from the wreckage.
Rescuers
worked throughout the night to look for victims in the rubble of two
dilapidated apartment blocks which collapsed suddenly on Monday morning not far
from the centre of the Mediterranean port city.
There are
between five to eight people missing, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner
said late Monday, with authorities trying to trace five residents and three
other people who had been invited to the buildings.
“The most
important is saving lives,” Castaner added from the scene. “During the first
clearing operations we’ve found some pockets of air that means we still have
some hope of finding and identifying a survivor.”
The first
victim — a man — was pulled from the wreckage Tuesday, prosecutor Xavier
Tarabeux said, adding that he needed to be identified.
Google Maps
images taken in recent months showed the two collapsed buildings, in the
working-class neighbourhood of Noailles, had had large visible cracks in their
facades.
One of them
had been condemned and, with its windows boarded up, was well-secured and in
theory unoccupied, officials said.
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