“We were all just inches away from death” say lucky British tourists

A huge sense of relief flooded over all of the 400 British tourists staying at the Can Picafort Park Hotel yesterday as the events of Thursday night sank in with many realising that they were “just inches away from death.” Peter and Betty Bryant, from Somerset, who had arrived earlier in the day after a one week cruise, watched stunned and shocked as the front half of the two-storey apartment block collapsed “in a huge cloud of dust” “We were leaving the restaurant when I heard a noise like a trolley carrying loads of luggage and then suddenly there was a great tinkling of glass. I saw the bottom of the block shift forward and then the whole lot came crashing down in a split second. I and a couple of men ran to the scene and managed to get a man, who was trapped in his room, free with a ladder, while other people arrived shouting out to see if anyone else was trapped, thankfully there was no one under the rubble.” “We were shocked and now we just want to go home, it's put a bit of a downer on the holiday, we're waiting for a flight as soon as possible, Peter and his wife said. Richard and Maureen Bennett were having dinner when the head waiter rushed in calling for guests in Block E to gather in reception “urgently, and shortly after the ambulances started arriving.” Maureen said as soon as she saw what had happened, the cloud of dust, the twisted mettle and rubble “it took my breath away and my heart jumped into my mouth, had anybody been inside they would not have escaped alive. It was an absolute miracle.” Maureen also told of how everybody gathered in the bar as news broke that eight people from Block E had not been accounted for and a huge sense of despair and fear swept over the 400 guests, but once the missing holidaymakers had been located “there was a massive sense of relief and everybody cheered and clapped, there was no anger just thankfulness that nobody had been killed.” The Bennetts told of how two guests in Block E, on route for dinner remarked that their doors would not close properly and another couple, who loved the hotel so much last year, had specifically asked for a room in Block E. All that was left of their dream return to Majorca yesterday was a pile of rubble while two bath robes wafted in the wind with the bathroom fully exposed.