Six tourists have been injured, two of them seriously, during a sight-seeing trip in Mallorca after a viewing roof gave way and they were BURIED under the rubble.
The horrific incident happened last night in the village of Randa which enjoys magnificent views over the island below.
A total of seven tourists, all French, had climbed on to a concrete building, the roof of which acted as a viewing point. Six were injured.
They all plummeted about 10ft through the roof when it gave way and were buried, some of them for several hours, under concrete rubble.
A full investigation is now underway as the emergency services remain on the scene.
A large number of personnel had worked for approximately two hours yesterday until they were able to rescue all of the tourists from under the rubble.
Some of the injured were able to climb up a rescue ladder but two of the tourists had to be lifted out vertically on stretchers, with one complaining of leg pain and the other with a back injury.
Four of the victims were slightly injured, while two others were transferred to a hospital with a serious prognosis.
The event occurred at around 7.15pm last night on the outskirts of the town of Randa, in the municipality of Algaida.
The French tourists, all of them in their 60s, were visiting the area together with a group from a tourist agency.
They were reportedly standing on the concrete cistern at road level. At one point and for reasons that are unknown but are now being investigated, the roof gave under their feet and the seven tourists plummeted inside, in a fall of about three metres.
A huge deployment of troops was activated, with the presence of the Civil Guard of Llucmajor and Algaida, as well as Local Police of Algaida, six crews of the firefighters of the parks of Llucmajor and Manacor, members of Civil Protection of Algaida and at least four ambulances.
“The rescue operation lasted until 9.10pm,” says island newspaper Cronica de Balearics. “The work has been complicated to extract two of the victims. The firefighters have required the presence of a truck with a ladder, which they have parked in the middle of the road. After stabilising it, they have stretched the ladder, as if it were a boom truck, so that the firefighters have been able to go down to the hut with stretchers.”
Once outside, the health workers have attended to the seven people, transferring six of them to various hospitals. The Civil Guard has taken charge of the investigations to try to determine the causes of what happened.
According to what some residents of the area have declared to Crónica Balear, the surroundings of the building were fenced with an enclosure with a door that, it is unknown why, “some time ago someone tore it off and it was left open”.
The road between Randa and Cura, where the collapse occurred, has had to be closed to traffic.
Police sources have indicated that just a few metres from this viewing point there is a cliff, known as Es Morro den Moll, with a drop of more than 120 metres. Fortunately, the affected tourists have been trapped a few metres from this precipice in the hollow of the building.