It was 12:48 when the deluge began to fall in the City.
And while thousands of people were sheltering from the rain, in Pedro Goyena 557 a construction site collapsed on a PH in Caballito.
The fatal consequence was
the death of two brothers
, aged 82 and 75, who according to SAME personnel
died instantly.
According to the neighbors consulted by
Clarín
, at the time of the rain
“a crash was heard
, but there were no screams and after a few minutes the ambulances and patrol cars began to arrive.”
Minutes passed and people began to gather on the corner of José María Moreno Avenue.
Everyone asked, with concern, about a certain Ramón.
“He was an incredible person.
He was at home, I saw the image and said, that is the house where Ramón lives.
He was a merchant in the area and was always busy taking care of his sister,” said Sergio Cafalori, a neighbor and frequent customer of the business.
Ramón was 82 years old and lived with his sister Nelida in apartment 14 of the Pedro Goyena PH.
According to neighbors, the woman was unable to walk and she did not go out much.
She suffered from hip problems.
In fact, a young woman used to take care of her while her brother tended to her
Pet Shop “Bruli”
, where most of the neighbors went to bathe and buy things for her pets.
Ramón had lost his partner, Jorge, just four months ago.
The neighbors said that the duel was bad.
“To lift his spirits I would pick him up when he saw him.
He always asked her: So?
When will you bring me food?
And he laughed.
He used to run the business with Jorge, but lately he was alone.
As far as I know, neither of them had children.
For me it is very painful because
we are neighbors,
we were always there for them,” says Norma, one of the managers of the hotel that is a few meters from the site of the collapse.
Work under construction and collapse on Pedro Goyena Avenue, in Caballito.
Photo: Mariana Nedelcu
For the woman, the building “was not in good condition.
What bothered me were the noises when they were digging.
Early in the morning they humped you,” she remarked to
Clarín.
Ramón's Pet Shop is at Bonifacio 497. One block from the scene of the tragedy.
A woman passing by the place holds on to the bars and looks sadly inside the business.
“I always came here to buy, many years ago.
Ramón was an excellent person,
a bread of God, he always talked about his sister,” she says distressed.
Her name is Ana and she was a client.
The brothers lived in apartment 14, the only one on the first floor of the PH.
According to SAME, both were in the living room at the time of the tragedy.
Nélida's body “was in the apartment,” while Ramón's fell with the rubble that collapsed into the construction site's pit, about
13 meters deep.
Tragic collapse in Caballito.
Two people died and another neighbor was rescued from the rubble. Photo: Mariana Nedelcu
The injured were 14,
including four children and a blind man who was taken to Durand Hospital.
The 15 workers who worked at the site were rescued unharmed.
As reported by the City Government, the work was registered with a start permit in August 2023 and was in the excavation stage.
The Government Control Agency
last inspected it on December 5.
Neighbors spoke of "complaints that were not heard."
One of them, Lucas Ramangan, explained to
Clarín
that the PH had 14 departments.
The remaining 13 had not suffered much damage because the entrance hallway separated them from the work.
The only house that was attached to the party wall was the one on the first floor, where Ramón lived with his sister.
The collapse took away part of the kitchen-dining room and the bedroom.
"We have been making complaints against the company for a year and a half. Two months after the work started, we began to tell them the things that were happening. The wall was peeling off, bricks were beginning to fall. Since the work faced the hallway of the PH , you saw all the pieces, you went out and saw all the pieces on the ground," Lucas told
Clarín
.
And he added:
"We made complaints and no one responded,
no one took responsibility for anything. We said from the beginning that they were shoring things up badly. And even the workers worked without helmets, without safety."
This Thursday at 8 p.m. the work of firefighters and specially trained dogs in search of people continued.
Although according to official information, there were no missing people.
The expert examination had also begun
to determine what caused the fatal collapse.
S.C.