A painful feeling of deja vu. The collapse of a building in the city center, followed by the collapse of part of the two neighboring buildings, left Marseille in shock on Sunday April 9, four and a half years after the tragedy in the rue d’ In prison.
The previous night, a violent explosion shook the entire neighborhood between Place de la Plaine and Boulevard Eugène-Pierre, in the 5e arrondissement. At 12:40 a.m., while the many bars and nightlife establishments in this part of the city were still full, a four-storey building collapsed at 17, rue de Tivoli. The shock wave shattered the windows of the neighborhood, twisted the doors of the street garages and above all caused the partial collapse of the two adjoining buildings, at numbers 15 and 19. Cloud of dust, rubble on the roadway… At the first witnesses arrived on the spot, everything recalls November 5, 2018, when a fire started in the basement of the building.
“That’s the first thing that came to mind., recognizes the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan (various left), at the scene of the tragedy shortly after 1 a.m. and who has not gone away since. But rue d’Aubagne is unworthy housing. Here, everything suggests that we are in a totally different situation. You have to keep distance and calm. »
A building “in very decent condition”
The condition of the buildings in the rue de Tivoli has nothing to do with those in the Noailles district. “This building was not known to the state services”confirms the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who arrived in Marseille shortly after 11 a.m. “at the request of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister”. “The building was in the opinion of all in a very decent state”, specifies the Minister, after a short visit to the scene of the disaster. According to Mr. Darmanin, the building was not targeted by “no danger decree” and no intervention by the firefighters or the prefecture concerned the rue de Tivoli in the three previous years.
At midday, no one formulates a hypothesis on the causes of the explosion, preferring to wait for the Marseille prosecutor’s office, which, during the night, opened an investigation for “involuntary injuries”, communicates. But the security assistant, Yannick Ohanessian, evokes “testimonies that come back to say that there were suspicious smells of gas”. A track which also spoke about the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, Christophe Mirmand.
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