Building taken down floor by floor

PICTURES. A. SEPULVEDA
A judicial inquiry was opened yesterday to establish what caused the catastrophic collapse of the four-storey building on the corner of calle Alos in Palma in the early hours of Monday morning killing seven people and injuring two others.

The investigation was mounted just hours before the extremely delicate task of demolishing the remaining shell of the property got under way. According to residents, the building had been in a poor state of maintenance for some time and cracks could clearly be seen in its exterior.

Palma City Council engineers, technicians, fire chiefs and the police began the demolition operation at 11am with a thorough inspection of the skeleton of the building left standing, its foundations and surrounding area.

The use of explosives was quickly ruled out because of the potential threat such an operation would pose to other properties in the area and, just before 3pm, the carefully controlled demolition began.

The remains of the property was literally dismantled piece by piece for safety reasons and, as dusk fell, there was little left standing. Work will resume this morning.

Police sniffer dogs also combed the building as it came down in layers in case of there being more bodies trapped inside. Over 300 tonnes of rubble had already been removed from the scene by Monday night.

Yesterday, the Mayor of Palma, Aina Calvo, made it clear that the council had not received any official complaints about the condition of the building promising that an exhaustive investigation is being carried out in which she hopes the local community will participate and present any evidence they feel may be significant or helpful.