British holidaymakers told yesterday of their
miraculous escape when a three-storey hotel block in Majorca collapsed while
they were out having dinner. The block at the Hotel Picafort Park in the resort
of C'an Picafort caved in without warning, leaving just a heap of crumbled
concrete and metal.
Holidaymakers who had been in their rooms just minutes
earlier had all left for dinner at the opposite end of the hotel. "We
feel we came within inches of death," said Margaret Angus,of Banchory, near
Aberdeen. "If we had been half-an-hour later in leaving our room, God
knows what would have happened." Her husband said the door to his room had
jammed just hours before the accident - a possible sign that the building's
structure was beginning to shift.
All 400 guests in the hotel - which has a "gold" rating from tour operator
Thomson - were British. The company's brochure describes the hotel as having
a "calm air of spaciousness". Around 15 of the hotel's 207 bedrooms
were totally destroyed, leaving 54 guests without any belongings. Among them
was Moreen Simpson and her husband Richard, also from Aberdeen. "We
just couldn't believe our eyes," she said yesterday. The block was reduced
to a pile of rubble and mangled steel. There were a couple of towels lying
in among the concrete blocks and trees. All I could think was that if there was
anyone in there, they wouldn't have had a chance."
She added:
"We may never get our belongings back, but we don't care. We are just so
relieved that we are alive and safe." Guests were told to pack overnight
bags if their belongings hadn't been buried under concrete and were then taken
by bus to other hotels in the resort in the north-east of the island. Thomson
said it was now considering the future of the Picafort Park. "The incident
is being fully investigated but no cause is yet known for the collapse,"
said a spokesman. "We are obviously very pleased that nobody was injured.
We have our people on the site and experts are travelling out to assess the
situation.
