The day after the collapse of two buildings in the city center of Lille, 20 minutes takes stock of what we know of the drama. The search for victims ended with the discovery of the body of a man in the rubble, now place for the judicial inquiry and the work of experts.
A healthy presence of mind
During the night from Friday to Saturday, around 3 a.m., Thibault Lemay, a student who lives at 44, rue Pierre-Mauroy, returns from the evening, notices that the door of his building is open and that a section of the wall of the entrance is falling apart. He immediately called the emergency services.
Noting the seriousness of the damage, the city services decided to issue a danger order for this building and to evacuate all the occupants during the night. On the other hand, the procedure was not applied to the adjoining buildings, the firefighters having not detected any risk assured Martine Aubry, this Sunday.
The collapse
It was barely a few hours after the student gave the alert, around 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, that the three-storey building targeted by the danger order collapsed, dragging down the adjoining building located at number 42.
If the first speeches of political leaders are reassuring on the human toll, the work of the firefighters will darken the picture over the hours. Quickly, rescuers pull a 75-year-old man out of the rubble, miraculously unscathed. Then the news comes that a second victim is probably trapped in the pile of rubble.
The search lasted until 1:30 a.m. on the night of Saturday to Sunday, when a lifeless body was extracted from the rubble. The victim is a 45-year-old psychiatrist, working at the Calais hospital, who had been lent an apartment for the night in the building at No. 42 rue Pierre-Mauroy.
A judicial inquiry
As soon as the body was extricated from the rubble, it was sent to the forensic institute of Lille in order to carry out its formal identification. In addition, the scene of the collapse is frozen for the purposes of the investigation, opened for endangering the lives of others and involuntary homicide. It will be a question in particular of determining the causes of this drama, in particular if there was negligence in the maintenance of the buildings.
The Minister Delegate for Housing, Olivier Klein, must go to Lille on Monday, “to discuss with experts and relief”. Nevertheless, as of Saturday afternoon, he had affirmed on France Info that the building in question was “not at risk”. However, scaffolding covered the facade, which had already been reported for rock falls. According the voice of the Northit is the load-bearing wall between the two buildings which could have subsided, then collapsed, dragging with it the two buildings it supported.
Current expertise
Sunday morning, residents and traders of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the collapse, had been summoned by the city to attend the expertise of their premises. It was a question of confirming the impressions of the first experts, who came on Saturday, and of examining more minutely the structures of the neighboring buildings.
According to Martine Aubry, nothing suggests that another building could collapse in turn. But for the time being, none of the interested parties knows if he will be able to return to his home or his business. Clearing operations can only resume after the end of the investigations by the judicial police. It will then be a question of consolidating the buildings located on either side of the immense void using metal props.