Spanish emergency services recovered the bodies of four people under the rubble of a six-story building that collapsed in downtown Madrid, the capital of Spain, during a hotel renovation, local officials said on Wednesday (8).
“It is with deep sadness that we confirm that the firefighters of Madrid have recovered the bodies of missing people after the collapse,” wrote Mayor José Luis Almeida on the social network X.
With deep sadness we confirm that he has rescued the lifeless bodies of the two people who remained missing after the collapse on Roweras Street.
All our love and support to their families, friends and colleagues in this very hard time.
-José Luis Martínez-Almeida (@almeidapp_)
The victims were identified as three men aged 30 to 50, from Ecuador, Mali and Guinea-Concry, employees as a construction workers, as well as a 30-year-old woman, an architect responsible for the renovation project.
The remains were found on the morning of Wednesday, almost 15 hours after the, which left the façade intact, in a search and rescue operation in which police and firefighters used drones and sniffer dogs. Three other workers were injured.
A construction worker, named Mikhail, was pumping concrete for the lower floors of the building and was outside when the collapse occurred. He said he saw a large cloud of dust and ran immediately.
According to the online record of buildings under construction of Madrid, the property was built in 1965. He underwent two technical inspections in 2012 and 2022 and was classified as “unfavorable” due to the “general state of the facade, outside, partition walls, roof, terraces and plumbing and sewage system”.
The old office building, located in an area in the center of the popular capital among tourists, near the opera and the Royal Palace, was being converted into a four star hotel by Construtora Rehbilita, according to information on its website. Rehbilita did not respond to a Reuters news agency comment.
The property belongs to the Saudi Fund RSR, a real estate investor specializing in high standard hotels and tourist apartments in Spain and Portugal. RSR bought it for 24.5 million euros (US $ 28.5 million) by 2022.
The reform, approved by the municipal authorities in December 2024, was expected to last two years.
