A two-story restaurant building collapsed on the beach in Palma de Mallorca on Thursday (May 23), killing several people and injuring more than a dozen in the tourism hot spot in Spain's Balearic Islands, the country's national police said. - REUTERS
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00:00 A two-story beach club collapsed in Spain on Thursday,... killing several people and
00:06 injuring more than a dozen. The victims included two German tourists, a
00:12 Spanish waitress and a Senegalese man, according to the city council.
00:18 Officials observed a minute of silence on Friday and declared three days of mourning.
00:24 The country's Mediterranean Balearic Islands are preparing for a summer tourism season,
00:31 expected to bring millions of visitors. The first emergency calls came in on Thursday
00:36 evening, a police spokesperson told local media.
00:42 At around midnight local time, emergency crews at the scene secured the area, finalized their
00:48 search and rescue operation as they dug through rubble.
00:53 One of the firefighters told local newspaper the scene was nightmarish and people were
00:58 crying and screaming when he arrived. Here's Eder Garcia, the chief of Palma de
01:04 Mallorca's fire department. "Tonight there has been a collapse here at
01:09 a disco club next to the sea. The first floor fell down. The causes are under investigation.
01:16 The first hypothesis is excess of weight. The basement floor collapsed. There was a
01:22 vault and this is where more victims were found."
01:28 Witnesses said there was a loud noise when the rooftop fell while they were working nearby.
01:34 Local residents said the collapsed building went through construction works last year
01:39 and it reopened just a few days ago. Danny Carbonell is the head of a local neighborhood
01:45 association. "These are traditional Mallorca houses that
01:50 are under protection but they have been given another use rather than residential use. Lots
01:54 of construction works have been done around here and clearly these structures are not
01:58 made to hold so much weight for a long time. So unfortunately this is what we get."
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