A man has died and a woman has been seriously injured when a large rock fell on their home in Cala Sant Esteve, in the Menorcan municipality of Es Castell. The incident occurred at around 4.15 a.m. Firefighters, 061 and the Guardia Civil found two people trapped under the rubble when they arrived.
The rock that fell is about five metres in diameter and crashed on the terrace of the building, which consists of three homes. It passed through two floors before falling into the bedroom on the ground floor where the couple was. Seven people live in the affected building, one on the second floor, four on the first floor and two on the ground floor.
According to initial reports, the man, aged around 65, was found dead, and the woman, aged around 60, was rescued and taken to hospital. The woman has an initial prognosis of crushing injuries to her lower limbs and other parts of her body. A severe multiple trauma code has been activated to treat her.
The collapse affected a villa located in the Fort Marlborough area, at the mouth of the port of Mahon. This is a difficult operation to access in an area with poor telephone coverage. Rescue teams are using a drone to assess the situation. In addition, a dozen homes in the area affected by the landslide have had to be evacuated.
The woman, an employee of the Es Castell Town Council, was rescued at around 7.30 a.m., two hours after the alert was received by Samu 061, still in the middle of the night, which made the work of the 061 medical team more difficult. They arrived with two ambulances, along with the fire brigade, the Guardia Civil, the Es Castell Local Police and Civil Protection volunteers, together with the mayor, Lluís Camps, and the Minister for Cooperation, Simón Gornés, among others.
The lack of coverage in the cove for the past thirteen months also hampered communications among the neighbourhood, which was outraged by this prolonged lack of basic services. The woman was conscious with injuries to her lower limbs when she was evacuated to the hospital. At around 12 noon, her prognosis was guarded, with multiple injuries, and she was admitted to the emergency room.
The Guardia Civil evacuated all the homes on the same side of the cove where the incident had occurred, while the fire brigade, accompanied by the municipal architect and engineer, began to assess the damage in the midst of a complex and dangerous situation due to the risk of further landslides, with the support of a drone taking images from a height of around 30 metres.
At around 9.30 a.m., the fire brigade began to shore up the ground floor of the building and half an hour later, a lorry with a crane capable of lifting 100 tonnes began to remove the rubble in order to reach the deceased person.