It’s a whole neighborhood that is in shock on this Easter Sunday. Near rue de Tivoli, in the 5th arrondissement of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), where a building collapsed overnight from Saturday to Sunday at number 17, it is concern and amazement that dominate.
At least six people were injured and search operations are underway to try to find possible victims in the rubble. A total of 80 people in surrounding buildings had to be evacuated. Part of the neighboring building, at number 15, also collapsed during the night. Many residents testified to the violence of the explosion.
And the results could prove to be dramatic: “We believe that there are between four and ten people under the rubble, which is very difficult to access. They must first be safely removed in order to intervene. We cannot intervene in a classic way, since the water should not prevent possible victims from surviving, ”explained shortly before noon the Minister of the Interior, traveling to Marseille.
“Everything shook, the building fell onto the street”
At the time of the explosion “everything shook, we saw people running and there was smoke everywhere, the building fell on the street”, declared in particular to AFR Aziz, a man who preferred to remain silent. his family name, manager of a night food business in the rue de Tivoli. “The frames have fallen. I ran screaming: Acall the fire department! Call the fire department ! And I saw that the building had fallen, ”testified a mother with La Provence.
“There was a huge boom, I thought it was an earthquake,” recalls Stéphane, a resident, still with Provence. Many residents evoke an explosion heard for several kilometers around, and claim to have been awakened by the noise. “At first we thought it was a car hit,” testifies Lolita at the microphone of the regional daily.
Then they saw “shaking and smoke. And all of a sudden, brutal, we heard the collapse. When I came out we saw the building collapsed. The firefighters arrived very quickly, a column of ambulances was immediately installed in the street, ”detailed Thomas to the Parisian, 32, who lives at number 11 of the street. “It really looks like a gas explosion. »
Dozens of residents hastily evacuated
“I saw the broken window frames, the ashes. (…) And now we see the buildings on the other side of Tivoli that we did not see, ”says still very shocked, a resident at BFM TV. Debris from the explosion was thrown into his apartment building.
Jeanine lives in rue Jaubert, a road perpendicular to rue de Tivoli. This grandmother was evacuated this Sunday morning by the firefighters. “In the night we heard like a bomb, and this morning, they came to tell us that we had to leave”, tells us the retiree, who had to leave her home with her daughter and her grandchildren who live in her building. They were directed to a school.
“I’m very worried about what they’ll find under the rubble,” she said. On the spot, the LFI deputy for the 5th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, Hendrik Davi, describes a neighborhood “in shock”. “There is clearly a problem of renovation of old buildings in this area. I live here, it’s been three years since I reported a dangerous gas line at home, nothing has been done, ”assured the deputy.
The ghost of the rue d’Aubagne in all memories
“It naturally echoes the tragedy in the rue d’Aubagne. There are bound to be people we know, ”laments in La Provence a waiter at a bar-tabac near the rue de Tivoli. Four and a half years ago, the collapse of two buildings in this street in the 1st arrondissement of Marseille caused the death of eight people.
A hundred people had to be evacuated on November 5, 2018, the day of the tragedy, but in total, more than a thousand inhabitants had been asked to leave their homes as a precaution in the following days.