Simon Hunter
THE beach club restaurant in Palma de Mallorca that suddenly collapsed last week killing four people did not have a licence for the area that gave way.
That’s according to the mayor of the Balearic city, Jaime Martinez, who held a press conference on Tuesday to provide an update about the tragedy, which also saw 14 people injured on May 23.
It was a recently refurbished first-floor terrace that initially gave way, falling through into the ground floor and basement below.
This structure, the mayor explained today, did not have a licence and as such its use was illegal.
The basement, which was home to a music bar, and the ground floor, which was a restaurant, both had their papers in order for these uses, according to the mayor.
The authorities are working on the theory that the illegal terrace floor collapsed due to substandard and illegal construction work, as well as excess weight in one area.
In a firefighters’ report, which has been sent to the Policia Nacional as part of their investigation, it was revealed that a group of 12 Dutch nationals had arrived to eat and had sat together at a group of tables pushed together, overloading the structure.
According to radio network Cadena SER, the Medusa Beach Club was slapped with a €4,500 fine back in 2020 after work was carried out there without a licence.
The people who lost their lives in last week’s tragedy were a Spanish female employee at the venue, aged 23; two female German tourists, aged in their 20s and 30s; and a Senegalese national resident in Palma and aged 44.
