Elderly woman missing after five-storey building collapses in Italy's Bari

Local Italy

06-03-2025

Search operations aided by dog units and drones started on Wednesday evening and were ongoing on Thursday.
Rescue teams were focusing their efforts on a specific area of rubble where the woman's cell phone signal was detected, according to reports.
Located in Bari's Via de Amicis, just south of the city's train station, the building had been deemed structurally unsafe and was evacuated by local authorities in February last year.
Renovation work reportedly started last week.
Italian media reports said the missing woman was on the fourth floor when the building collapsed.
At the time of writing, it was still unclear why she was in the building.
The head of the Bari fire service, Rosa D'Eliseo, said the collapse was caused by structural failure.
'A part collapsed first, which then brought down the rest," she said.
The mayor of Bari, Vito Leccese, said 'firefighters have been removing the rubble with their bare hands' in an attempt to find the missing woman.
"I still hold out hope that she will be found alive," he said.
He added that around 80 people had been evacuated from the homes adjacent to the collapsed building, with 14 residents taken to a nearby hotel.
The President of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, said he had given 'full availability of personnel and resources from the regional Civil Protection [department] for rescue operations, as well as the relocation of citizens evacuated from buildings' near the collapse.
The Public Prosecutor's Office in Bari has opened an investigation into the incident, according to news agency Ansa.