Sharp-eyed man’s warning before building in France collapses saves lives
A four-storey building has collapsed in the northern French city of Lille but no deaths have been reported so far, thanks to a resident’s advance warning, French authorities said.
Lille firefighters said they rescued one person from the rubble with only light injuries. The search for any others possibly trapped in the rubble was continuing before an investigation begins into why the building collapsed on Saturday morning.
The building in the centre of the city was evacuated before dawn after a man coming back home about 3am after a night out saw cracks appearing in the structure and reported the issue to emergency services, the Lille prefecture said.
The fire service responded and created a cordon around the “zone of peril”. The building, divided into commercial and residential parts, was four storeys high.
Lille’s mayor, Martine Aubry, told French broadcaster BFM TV that the man’s actions saved lives. Authorities have not named him.
“I am still shaking, because if this gentleman hadn’t come home at 3am and contacted us, we wouldn’t have had this reaction and, well, there would have obviously been deaths,” she said.
“He then warned the municipal police and the firefighters, who decided to evacuate the building, believing that there was a real risk,” Aubry said.
In 2018, two dilapidated buildings collapsed in the southern French city of Marseille, killing eight people and triggering harsh criticism of local authorities and the French government.
France’s interior minister at the time, Christophe Castaner, responded by ordering a citywide building-bybuilding audit as well as a programme to guarantee safer conditions.