Badalona woke up yesterday shocked by the tragic outcome of the collapse of the five-story building on Canigó Street in the Raval neighborhood, which claimed three fatalities. A building built in the 60s in which 20 humble families lived who have lost everything. “I have left my life in the rubble,” said a neighbor yesterday who did not want to reveal her name.
The Generalitat Bombers located yesterday at 1:45 in the morning the first of the bodies buried under the rubble, which occupied the entire ground floor, with a thickness of three meters and which were removed by hand by security personnel. At 6:30 a.m. they found the second victim and half an hour later a third person.
Almost with the total certainty that the building will not be able to be rehabilitated, as the mayor of Badalona, ??Xavier Garcia Albiol, advanced yesterday, the neighbors are faced with the drama of having lost three of their tenants. According to the first mayor of Badalona, ??the most probable cause of the collapse was the poor condition of the materials in the attic, the area from where the collapse began, which ended up collapsing the entire property. An extreme that the Bombers have not wanted to confirm until the official investigation is completed. What is verified is that the building passed the tests last month to obtain the mandatory certificate from the technical building inspection (ITE).
Among the 45 firefighters, the canine unit of the Generalitat Firefighters was essential in locating the bodies under the rubble. As the rubble was being removed, three dogs trained to locate human presence in inaccessible spaces accessed the property and marked the presence of the bodies. From the City Council, after reviewing the registry, municipal technicians confirmed that the three fatalities lived on the property, in three different floors and were correctly registered. “It is terrifying news for the city what families have to live through now,” lamented a visibly affected Garcia Albiol.
“He’s not answering me, he may be unconscious,” the wife of one of the victims cried yesterday while hugging her baby. She was talking about her husband, a 30-year-old young man who had just become a father for the second time in two years, with a month-and-a-half-old baby. Rescue personnel confirmed her identity after she died when the floor of the apartment collapsed. It so happens that the woman and the two children were saved because they had gone for a walk to a nearby park, and when they returned they were struck by the tragedy.
Another family drama will be forever fixed in the memory of these neighbors. This is the second fatality, a 40-year-old woman of Polish origin, who had moved to Spain a few years ago, where she soon found work to rebuild her life. She lived in the damaged block with her two daughters, about 12 years old, who were surprised that her mother did not come pick them up from school, as she usually did. “She was a very hard-working woman, who only lived for her daughters and who had come to Spain fleeing from a family drama,” said a neighbor. From now on, the two minors will enter the guardianship circuit of the General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA). The third victim is a 40-year-old woman about whom no information has been provided.
On the other hand, the neighbors residing in the blocks adjacent to the accident, in numbers 7 and 11, have been guaranteed that they can return to their homes, after being evicted as a precaution. There are 40 families who shuddered yesterday when remembering the victims. “They were good people, we knew them from seeing each other on the street, it is a modest neighborhood in which we all know each other by sight,” José Luís pointed out. “It’s going to be difficult for me to get back to my house, I don’t feel safe,” acknowledged yesterday a young South American man who lives in one of the blocks that have not been affected and who, as a result of the impact, had to receive psychological assistance at the Casal. d’Avis del Raval, where more than a hundred people gathered on Tuesday.
