The nightclub which became the scene of fatal devastation yesterday after a floor caved in and killed four people had unveiled its new rooftop bar just a day earlier.
Footage from the scene showed hundreds of emergency service personnel rushing to the Medusa Beach Club on Majorca's famed Playa de Palma beach Thursday night after four people were killed when the first floor terrace caved in.
According to local media, only the façade of the two-storey building remains after the terrace collapsed all the way through to the basement. Unverified reports say that people had been dancing on the terrace when it collapsed.
Just a day prior to the tragedy, a social media update on the Medusa Beach Club's Instagram showed an image of their new rooftop bar. The caption read: "Totally different. New rooftop."
Locals said it sounded like a bomb had gone off (ALEJANDO SUPLEVEDA/SOLARPIX.COM)Most of the victims in the Majorcan beach restaurant collapse are foreign, it was confirmed today by the island's emergency services.
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Two of the four people who died after the first floor terrace caved in at Medusa Beach Club in Playa de Palma last night have been described as female tourists. Nine people were “seriously injured” and seven suffered “very serious” injuries in the drama around 8pm.
Town Hall officials in Palma have confirmed no-one else is trapped under the rubble following the beach restaurant collapse. Palma’s Deputy Mayor Javier Bonet said this morning: “We can now rule out the possibility there could be more victims. This morning around 2.30am firefighters finished the job of clearing all the rubble and concluded the rescue operation. As well as the four fatalities, five of the injured are ‘red code’. They are critical but stable.”
He added of the rescue operation: “It worked very well with total unity between health professionals, local and national police and firefighters. They acted in record time and I would like to thank all those involved because we are very proud of what they did.
Playa de Palma in Palma de Mallorca (AFP/Getty Images)“It’s too early to say exactly what happened. Town hall technicians are at the scene. The main hypothesis is that there could have been a moment of excess weight and the first floor terrace collapsed onto the floor below and then the basement, but this is under investigation still.”
Eder Garcia, head of the Palma Fire Brigade, said from the scene overnight: “The names of the victims including the survivors and their degrees of injury are known. There are several nationalities and what we know is that most are not from Palma.
“A lot of the names are foreign names but we don’t know yet whether they include staff who were working there or whether they were visitors but we expect many will be tourists.
He added: “We received the first call around 8pm. The first floor terrace has collapsed, probably due to excess weight although it’s still under investigation, and it’s impacted on an arch below which has also come down and affected the basement where there was a table football table and there were people eating.”
Officials say the four people who died were three women and a man. The man has been named locally as Abdoulaye Diop, a Senegalese migrant living in Majorca and working as a nightclub doorman who made headlines on the island in 2017 by saving a man who was drowning in the sea at Playa de Palma.
(Facebook)He is thought to have stopped off at Medusa Beach Club, on the beachfront promenade, after leaving the gym.
A female friend of his who worked at the beach club, a restaurant which also offers live music with a DJ and is famed for its cocktails, is understood to be another of the four people who lost their lives.
He said in an interview with local paper Ultima Hora after his heroic feat: “It was two degrees and the water was freezing, but when you see a person in that situation you act without thinking to save their life. At about 8pm, a woman who was crying stopped us and told us that she was accompanied by a man who had gone into the water and was not coming back. She didn't have a phone and I left mine with her to call the police.
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“While we were looking to see if we could see anyone or not, I asked a policeman who had arrived for a torch and went into the sea. When the water reached my neck I saw the bather in the distance, I went out to tell the woman, the officers, the other policemen who had also arrived and I went to get the man.”
His friend joined them and they pulled him out of the water so he could be taken to hospital. Abdoulaye’s brother, who also lives in Spain, was too upset to talk last night as news emerged he was one of the four fatalities. He was working as a doorman at the Black Magic nightclub in Palma alongside Oumar.
The remaining two have been described locally as female tourists. Their nationalities are not yet known but the area is popular with German holidaymakers, although British visitors have left recent reviews online about the popular venue.
Locals have likened the collapse to a bomb going off. Raul Pursnani, owner of a shop called Moda Meena next door to Medusa Beach Club, said last night when the official death toll still stood at two: “I was leaving my shop and was outside when everything came down all of a sudden. The noise was very loud and the impact was massive. The first floor collapsed onto the one below.”
Palma Town Hall has declared three days of mourning. A spokesman for a regional government-run emergency response coordination centre said just before midnight: “We can now update the information on the number of people affected by the collapse of the building in Cartago Street in Playa de Palma. Four people have died, seven people have been very seriously injured and nine are seriously injured. They have been taken to different hospitals in Palma.” There has not yet been any morning update from officials on the condition of the injured or confirmation of whether anyone else has been found under rubble.
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