Call for “calm” over balcony falls

PALMA
A call for “calm” over anxiety prompted by the number of tourists falling from hotel balconies in the Balearics was made yesterday by the regional Minister for the Interior, Pilar Costa.

The Minister claimed that such accidents happen “every year” and are “exceptions” considering that 10 million visitors come to the Balearics within the space of just a few months. Reporting on the number of incidents which have taken place around the Balearic coastline during July, Costa confirmed that so far this year, nine people have died in falls from buildings in the Islands. She qualified her statement however, by pointing out that the statistics didn't just refer to tragedies involving falls from balconies, but from any part of a building and could include people trying to commit suicide.

The Minister said that falls from balconies generally happened when young people, either drunk or drugged, try to climb from one balcony of their hotel to another. She denied that her department had any information on people attempting to dive from the balconies of their rooms into hotel swimming pools.

Costa said she was not at this stage prepared to launch an awareness campaign about balcony safety because “it would simply spread further alarm.”