A two-story building collapsed in the area of Pasalimani in the port city of Piraeus on Tuesday morning, killing one person and injuring three.
The building was old and under re-construction when it collapsed.
Citing police source, daily ethnos.gr reports that the person killed was a 31-year-old police officer serving as a special guard who probably had a second job.
At the time of the collapse, he was working at the site and had jumped into a truck to save himself. However, the rubble fell into the truck.
Firefighters and rescuers of the Fire Service EMAK had rushed to the site and were initially in contract with the police officer trapped on the truck under the rubble. Yet, they could only retrieve him without his senses.
Χωρίς αισθήσεις ανασύρθηκε ο άνδρας από το φορτηγό όχημα και παρελήφθη από ασθενοφόρο του ΕΚΑΒ.
— Πυροσβεστικό Σώμα (@pyrosvestiki) April 16, 2024
The three injured person are construction workers who were transferred to hospital, one with injuries on the head, one with a broken leg.
At the time of collapse, a total of nine workers were working at the building and works had started two days ago, neighbors told protothema.gr.
It is not clear why the building partly collapsed, it is estimated though that there was a static problem that was burdened by the works.
Police has, so far, detained seven people, among them five workers, the contractor and the truck driver.
Unfortunately there are so,so many derelict buildings in Greece! An accident waiting to happen! There should be a deadline for owers to do something about it,if not they should be demolished.
I often wish I had money to buy one of those old falling down houses.
you should rethink your ‘should’ there – how many people have the money to keep modifying a building whatever way some bureacrat wants? you do realize that that would be an even stronger formula for concentrating all propety into the hands of the few and the rich? you really want a world like that?
they’re already trying for that sort of thing in the sneaky way with their ‘energy certification’ rubbish.
really one needs to pause, think for a moment, and realize that just about _never_ is more government the answer to any problem in society!
yes, a lot of people cannot afford to do all the maintenance on their house etc. Not all of us are rich. I think most of us would rather still live in our house, even if it needs repairs, than be thrown out on the street or have to pay rent we can’t afford. In this specific case, it sounds like they were actually doing work on repairing the building when something went wrong and it came down. Construction work is dangerous especially if one gets careless. I’ve done construction and demolition work and it takes constant attention to prevent an accident. Maybe the people doing the work thought they could get away with cutting some corners and it went bad on them. we don’t know.
often is also an inheritance problem with much too many “new owners” who will make absolute no profit if they proceed with the maintenance of old buildings.
My comment was written in haste and I should have given it more thought!
My husband has also worked on construction sites and I know that safety can be a massive issue.Of course I don’t want a world full of affluent people..🙄
Kind regards
It’s an interesting and world wide problem, private ownership actually stifles city/town development, concrete structures have a finite life span , if an owner cannot maintain a building it must be sold at auction or become part of a social housing system/scheme. Part of any countries value is it’s infa structure,and to be honest there is a lot of Greece that needs a coat of paint.
in countries where there is a large amount of inherited property it costs relatively little until you start maintaining it , but if it cost you €300,000 your going to look after it to realise a return.
“it must be sold at auction” really???? lol
No let’s just leave it until it falls in somebody’s children , what’s your solution ? , like most armchair politicians ” no comment”.
it’s not “my solution” but you can’t just auction a private property for what? safety reasons?
Why not ,if it endangers others and the public at large.
because it’s not a communist country and the properties are private asset.