Santa Coloma council evacuates another 29 residents due to cracks in building
Occupants of fifth block of flats in Badalona forced out after technical inspection
The local council of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, just outside Barcelona, has ordered all residents living at 9-11 Carrer Pirineus to move out due to safety concerns that the building is at risk of collapse after the appearance of cracks in the building.
Around 60 residents in the building – those living in the A stairway – were evacuated on Monday.
After a further inspection on Thursday morning, the council decided to also move residents in the B stairway out of the building.
The apartment block dates from the 1960s and has had conservation and maintenance problems for many years.
A total of 29 people were evacuated on Thursday, including 10 children.
A grocery store on the ground floor of the building has also been vacated.
Badalona
In Badalona, just north of Barcelona along the coast, the city council ordered a fifth block of flats to be evacuated on Friday.
Residents living in the twenty flats at 116, Carrer Ausiàs March were ordered to move out after "serious" cracks were discovered in the building.
The apartment block is located just behind Carrer Canigó, where three people died after a building collapsed at the beginning of February.
It is the fifth building on the same block to be evacuated over safety concerns, the first on a different street.
Badalona council and the Catalan government agreed this week to perform technical inspections in more than 400 flats on the block, in buildings built by the same developer between 1954 and 1960.
Blanes
In addition to the evacuations in Badalona and Santa Coloma, a building with 16 people was cleared in Blanes on Thursday.