Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhone)
“We had just returned from a party when the explosion occurred. She was very violent.”
Constance was near the building which collapsed, at 17, rue de Tivoli, in Marseille, on the night of Saturday to Sunday.
“By the time I took my mobile phone to dial the emergency number, I was already hearing the first sirens.
The firefighters arrived very quickly
, ”says the young woman who came down from Paris to spend the Easter weekend with a friend who lives a hundred meters from the scene of the tragedy.
At daybreak, the inhabitants of the Plaine district were in shock after this nightmarish night.
All hailed the dedication and action of the sailors-firefighters.
First aid, who arrived on the spot shortly before 1 a.m., intervened in very high-risk conditions.
The four-storey building, blown by the explosion and partly collapsed on the street, was engulfed in flames.
The two adjoining buildings threatening to collapse, it was necessary to quickly evacuate six injured people - residents hit by debris or who had escaped through the windows.
Rescuers also had to take great risks to recover, with a large scale, eight residents of number 15, refugees on their roof terrace.
In the morning, this building collapsed in turn.
"They saved them from certain death
," says Marie, evacuated from a building in the street with her two little girls.
Vice-Admiral Lionel Mathieu, commander of the battalion, underlines the importance of the means mobilized, without dwelling on this long holiday weekend which complicated things: "We
deployed more than a hundred men on the field, supported by search teams with dogs.”
For a long time, the latter were unfortunately unable to intervene because of the fire.
At the time of the relief, at noon, a young sailor-firefighter did not hide his frustration:
"Rue d'Aubagne
(where two buildings had collapsed in 2018, editor's note)
, despite the rain and the risk of landslide, we looked for people under the rubble.
There, the fire is too strong, and we cannot drown it because there may be a pocket with survivors.
While the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who came to the scene, spoke of
"four to ten people"
under the rubble on Sunday morning, the public prosecutor of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, indicated at the end of the day that eight people were not were not answering calls.
“A ninth person would be wanted at 19 rue Tivoli, even if this information is not confirmed,”
she added.
The town hall quickly set up an emergency number for worried families to come forward.
A local municipality, located a hundred meters from the scene of the tragedy, was also opened to accommodate any relatives, but also to draw up the list of inhabitants to be relocated.
"It's not the rue d'Aubagne here"
As a precaution, 32 buildings in the area and their 163 residents were evacuated.
“They also opened a school.
Here, there will be no people in great precariousness who will find themselves on the street
, ”confides Michel, on the forecourt of the Reformed.
Like dozens of parishioners, he has just attended Easter mass in a
“crowded”
church .
All conversations revolve around the drama of the previous night.
"It's not
the rue d'Aubagne
here,"
explains Mireille.
“The buildings are well maintained.
The district has become very popular with tourists
, adds his granddaughter, aged about 20.
And Airbnbs are legion.”
Benoît Payan, the mayor of Marseille, recalled that no building on this street has been the subject of a report of poor housing.
The prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, Christophe Mirmand, confirms:
"There was no danger decree for this building and it is not a district listed for unsanitary housing."
Even if the causes of the explosion and then the collapse of the buildings are not yet known, the authorities wanted to avoid any parallel with the tragedy in the rue d'Aubagne, which had killed eight people after the collapse of two dilapidated buildings. , in November 2018, in the bordering district of Noailles.
“Gas is obviously part of the tracks”
that can explain this explosion
“of extreme violence”,
specified the public prosecutor of Marseille
.
