Nearly six months after the collapse of the buildings on rue de Tivoli in Marseille, in which eight people died, the survivors have still not been able to recover some personal belongings from the rubble. Worse, stored on a vacant lot belonging to the town hall and located in the 15th arrondissement, the rubble of the buildings was cheerfully searched, according to testimonials from local residents reported by France Bleu. Still according to these testimonies, this land would also have been used as wild dumps.
“We were told not to worry about it, that the land was guarded and that we would not have access to our belongings because the rubble was sealed for the good of the judicial investigation”, explains to 20 minutes Roland Belessa, member of the collective of victims and ex-inhabitant of 15, whose building collapsed. He would have liked to be able to “recover some objects from his life before” but today he does not know if it will be possible and what is left. “What matters is the sentimental value of these objects. It’s important emotionally. It would help to rebuild and no one can do the sorting for us”, he continues before mentioning a small car with which four generations of children in his family have played, photo books or a hard disk of computer.
Already burglaries the week after the collapses
“Annoyed”, Rolland regrets the “cynicism” of his interlocutors and “the speeches” which are not followed by effects. For example, “the framework agreement with the insurers is still not effective”. This would, however, trigger the compensation of the victims, then charge the insurers to recover the funds advanced from the insurer that the investigation will have designated as responsible. Already, in the week following the tragedy, several burglaries in apartments left empty by the security perimeter had been recorded.
In a press release, the Tivoli April 9 Collective expressed its “anger” and “unfortunately notes once again that the reassuring and compassionate speeches are not followed by effects”. An anger that they had the opportunity to verbalize this Tuesday evening when a meeting – planned for a long time – with the town hall of Marseille took place.
Organization of a return to the site for the victims
Contacted Jean-Pierre Cochet, deputy in charge of risk management, recognizes without difficulty “an internal error of the services”. Since the clearing work, the rubble was stored, under seal, that is to say guarded, at the request of the State and of justice by the town hall of Marseille. But “on June 20, a letter from the prosecutor told us that we no longer needed the rubble under seal because the investigation work on it was finished. In a way, the State, by justice, has returned this rubble to us, ”rewinds the elected official. And this is where the malfunction comes in, due to “a misinterpretation by the services which thought that guarding was no longer necessary”.
The market was therefore lifted, and the site remained unsupervised from the end of July to the end of August, according to the town hall, which corrected the situation. Jean-Pierre Cochet also specifies “being in the process of organizing a return to the site” so that the victims can recover some belongings, with a possible difficulty which would be that of the presence of asbestos in the rubble.