MADRID residents have recalled their terror as a building under renovation collapsed in the city centre on Tuesday, killing four and injuring three others.
The collapse has ignited criticism of the city council’s oversight, with activists claiming that authorities dismissed red flags raised months before the works began.
The tragedy unfolded around 1pm, when a six-storey building on Calle Hileras 4, just blocks away from tourist hotspots Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol, caved in with a thunderous crash – forcing tenants in the neighbouring buildings to flee.
“I genuinely thought it was a bomb,” one nearby resident told the Olive Press. “I heard this deafening roar and thought we were under attack. I almost ducked behind my sofa for cover.”
“I’m glad to be back home now, but it still feels unsafe.”
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Miguel Marques Menendez, who owns El Cogollo de la Descarga restaurant next to the site, said: “I was working when it happened. I felt the ground rumble and saw the air fill with dust.”
Miguel Segui, head of Madrid’s Firefighting Department, explained that the collapse had effectively gutted the building, with the cave-in beginning on the sixth-floor rooftop and tearing through every level down to the basement.
In the hours following the disaster, rescue teams raced to save the lives of those trapped under the rubble.
Though aided by canine units and drones, it took firefighters more than 15 hours to pull all four bodies from the debris.
The three construction workers who died in the collapse, aged between 30 and 50, were identified as Dambele, Alfa, and Jorge from Mali, Guinea-Conakry, and Ecuador. The fourth victim, a 30-year-old architect, has been named as Laura.
Of the three people who were injured, two were placed under psychological care at the hospital, while the other was rushed to A&E with a broken leg.
Authorities confirmed the site is no longer at risk of collapse, and the evacuated tenants have been allowed back into their homes – but a stretch of Calle Hileras has been cordoned off, and many nearby shops and restaurants are now closed.
Marques Menendez said: “The firefighters said I can safely keep my restaurant open, but how can I be sure it suffered no structural damage? I want my insurance company to take a look first.”
He added: “And even if I could stay open, who would want to come here? Who would want to dine next to a pile of rubble?”
A waiter at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant said business has slowed alarmingly since the incident.
“The restaurant normally fills to bursting at lunch and dinner, but in the last couple of days hardly anyone has come at all. It is very worrying,” the waiter said.
The Hileras building, owned by Saudi real estate investor RSR, was being refurbished into a four-star hotel by Madrid-based developer Rehbilita.
The collapse has reignited criticism of Madrid’s construction oversight system, which relies on private urban planning firms (ECUs) to issue permits and inspect buildings.
Activists argue that this privatised system, which allows developers to choose their own inspectors, is riddled with conflicts of interest.
“We warned the city council about the dangers of this system several times,” said Jose Ferreira, an architect and spokesperson for the Tenants’ Trade Union of Madrid. “But they ignored us. There are at least two other sites in Madrid right now that are at risk of the same fate.”
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The renovation of the Hileras building was greenlit in February after an inspection by the private firm Ecium, despite earlier reports flagging structural issues with the building.
While Madrid’s mayor, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, stated that official channels had no record of complaints about the building, he promised a full review of the approval process.
In the wake of the disaster, the Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos de Madrid (‘Tenants’ Trade Union of Madrid’) slammed the city council, accusing it of allowing private urban planning firms to operate with little to no oversight.
“Madrid is collapsing under the weight of a privatised urban planning system that has already begun to kill,” the group said in a press release.
“If nothing changes, the next collapse could happen in any of the buildings still under construction within this same system.”
Ferreira pointed out that: “Under this system, [developers] can file a permit application and start construction on the same day. This is a glaring conflict of interest. How are ECUs supposed to stay objective?”
Approached by the Olive Press, Ecium declined to respond, stating that as an ECU it “cannot comment on matters relating to its operations’.
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