“We must prepare that there will be victims from this terrible tragedy,” the mayor of Marseille said after the collapse of a four-story apartment building in a central district of France’s second largest city, specifying that five people from neighboring buildings were injured.

The fire in the building “is still raging and is extremely difficult to bring under control,” Benoit Payan also noted.

“Firefighters are judging minute by minute what is the best way to put out the fire because there are probably people inside” the building, he added.

“A building on Tivoli Street 17 collapsed at 00:40, dragging parts of neighboring buildings,” Payan, who visited the area, had informed reporters earlier, adding that the fire “in the ruins, prevents us from sending rescuers with trained dogs to search for trapped people ».

“There are strong suspicions that the collapse was caused by an explosion, but we have to be very careful about the causes at this stage,” the prefect of the southern region of France, Christophe Merman, said at the same time, clarifying that natural gas could is a possible hypothesis.

“The explosion was huge,” also told AFP the resident of the Gilles area, who asked not to be identified by his last name and lives in a house located on a street perpendicular to that of the collapsed building.

Several streets around the building, which is in a central district of the city, have been blocked off and many first aid personnel are at the scene, according to an AFP photojournalist who was there.

The fire service has not yet been able to count how many people may have been inside the apartment building when it collapsed.

“We have about 100 firefighters on the scene, the priority is obviously to put out the fire and remove debris to find people who are possibly trapped under the rubble,” an official from Marseille’s fire department said at the same time.

From the two neighboring buildings that were damaged by the collapse of the apartment building at number 17 rue Tivoli, 5 injured people have already been removed, the mayor of Marseille also clarified.

Residents of other buildings located on the same street were evacuated from their homes for security reasons during the three days of this Catholic Easter and they are being accommodated in a school, noted Prefect Merman.

The authorities also launched an investigation to ascertain the causes of the tragedy.

In November 2018, eight people were killed when two buildings collapsed in another district of Marseille. These were buildings that were not in good condition in this city, in which 40,000 people live, as non-governmental organizations complain, in ruins.

However, the mayor and prefect appeared to rule out the possibility that the block of flats that collapsed today, which is in a district known for its restaurants, bars and nightlife, was not in good condition. “There was no decision notifying any danger for this building, which is also not located in a district that is reported to have buildings” that are not in good condition, the prefect noted.

“As far as I know, there were no particular problems in this building” the mayor also stated, underlining that this is not a street where the buildings are not in good condition.