The fall of a three- or four-story-tall banana tree on Wednesday night in the Corts neighborhood has fueled the concern of many Barcelona residents regarding trees. Barcelona already has three incidents related to trees in less than a week. Yesterday, right there, in front of the cut base of the trunk, some neighbors frowned. The drought, climate change and, above all, the death of a young woman this summer in the Raval neighborhood, after a palm tree split in half and fell on top of her, largely explain this sadness.
The municipal technicians, however, send a reassuring message and state that there are no more landslides than other years, that the causes of these recent incidents are varied and that the safety measures put in place after the fateful palm tree accident are in place about to finish developing. These days the City Council is cutting down half a thousand date palms that could still pose some risk.
The Corts banana tree, the one on Carrer Loreto, according to City Council sources, was located in an area where redevelopment works were taking place on the avenue. “We are analyzing the causes of the fall. For now, as a precaution, we have asked those responsible for the work to secure the rest of the trees in the area while these inquiries last.”
On Monday, some fungi triggered the fall of the large branch of a melia tree in front of the doors of an educational center in the Vila de Gràcia neighborhood, on Carrer Riera de Sant Miquel. And it was the rain and the weight of the water, the technicians conclude, that caused the branch of a tipuana tree to give way on Carrer Avenir, in the neighborhood of Sant Gervasi-Galvany, last Friday.
