At least four people were killed when a restaurant collapsed on Playa de Palma in Mallorca on Thursday evening. In addition, 16 people were injured, some of them seriously, police on the Spanish holiday island said.
Nothing was initially known about the cause of the accident or the identity of the victims. However, it is suspected that the victims included restaurant employees, local visitors and tourists. Emergency services were still frantically searching for victims under the rubble at around midnight.
The accident happened right on the beach, just a few streets away from the famous party locations Megapark and Bierkönig. The building of the Medusa Beach Club “collapsed at around 8.30 p.m. The first floor collapsed down to the basement, reported the newspaper El Pais and other media citing eyewitnesses.
However, a police spokesman had good news shortly before midnight: “With 90 percent certainty” there were no more victims under the rubble, he told the German Press Agency when asked. Javier, a resident of Playa de Palma, was in the immediate vicinity when the building on Cartago Street quickly collapsed. “It sounded like a bomb,” he told a reporter from the regional newspaper Last HourOther people said the building had only been renovated “a few years ago” and the part of the first floor that collapsed was used as a chill-out area.
Restaurant was full at the time of the collapse
At the time of the collapse, the restaurant, which also served as a cocktail bar with live music, was full, media reported. Around midnight, police, fire and emergency services units were still at the scene of the accident. Psychologists were still caring for victims and witnesses of the tragedy.
Up to 1,000 people gathered at the scene of the accident immediately after the collapse, regional newspapers reported. Relatives of employees were worried about their loved ones. The mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, and the first deputy mayor, Javier Bonet, also quickly drove to the beach to see the tragedy and the rescue work on site.
After the start of the party season, Playa de Palma has been full of tourists again since the end of April, most of whom – unlike the visitors to the English party hotspot Magaluf west of Palma – come from Germany.