A 15-year-old died when a house collapsed in Spain. Where is his mother and how did the collapse come about?
Madrid – At least one person was killed in the collapse of a three-story apartment building in eastern Spain.
The body of a 15-year-old boy was recovered from the rubble in the coastal town of Peñíscola in the Valencia region on Thursday, the Civil Guard police unit and the fire brigade said.
The missing mother of the deceased boy is still being searched for, it said. Around 140 helpers from the fire brigade, civil defense and police were therefore on duty with search dogs. Meanwhile, there was also good news: During the night, a man about 20 years old was found alive.
“That was a real miracle,” said Mayor Andrés Martínez to the state television broadcaster “RTVE”. The young man was seriously injured, but he was “doing well under the circumstances”. The accident occurred on Wednesday evening around 8 p.m. in the “Font Nova” residential complex in Peñíscola, around 130 kilometers northeast of Valencia. Parts of a building with around 20 apartments collapsed suddenly and partly for reasons that are still unknown. Several residents said they were able to get to safety in good time after hearing “strange noises”.
According to media reports, most of the residents of the house of the accident were outside at the time of the collapse to enjoy the summer evening near the Mediterranean. A worse tragedy was also prevented by the fact that several of the apartments serving as holiday accommodation were not rented.
According to official information, around 55 people were left homeless as a result of the collapse. However, they were all taken in privately that night or placed in hotels. “The wave of solidarity was overwhelming,” said Mayor Martínez. For the time being it was not known whether Germans or foreigners were among those affected.
The Guardia Civil police unit opened an investigation to determine the cause of the collapse. Experts quoted by “RTVE” believe that the heavy rainfall on Tuesday with around 70 liters per square meter could at least be partly responsible. It was said that the large amount of water in the building from the 1990s had decisively damaged a load-bearing wall. dpa
