Majorca
At least four dead in restaurant collapse at Ballermann
Rescue services are deployed after a building collapsed on Palma beach. Photo
© Isaac Buj/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
A restaurant in Ballermann collapsed like a house of cards – only much louder. At midnight, emergency services were still searching for victims under the rubble.
Tragedy at Ballermann: When a restaurant collapsed on Playa de Palma on At least four people died in Mallorca this evening. In addition, 16 people were injured, some of them seriously, the police on the Spanish holiday island said. The cause of the accident and the identity of the victims were not yet known. However, it is suspected that the victims included restaurant employees and local visitors as well as 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 iconic bars 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 País” 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 dpa when asked.
Javier, a resident of Playa de Palma, was nearby when the building on Cartago Street collapsed quickly like a house of cards but with a loud bang. “It sounded like a bomb,” he told a reporter from the regional newspaper Última Hora. Other people said the building had only been renovated “a few years ago.” The part on the first floor that collapsed had been 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 had gathered in front of the accident site immediately after the collapse, reported the regional newspapers “Diario de Mallorca” and “Última Hora”. 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 get a first-hand look at the tragedy and the rescue work.
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.