The incident coinciding with dinner prevented a “catastrophe”

The exact reason why the building collapsed is still being investigated by engineers and apparently a team of structural engineers from the United Kingdom flew into the island yesterday to help the inquiry. Mallorca S.A., who own and manage the hotel said in a statement yesterday that within five minutes of the incident, all of the guests in Block E had been accounted for and that a decision was taken to transfer all of the 440 guests to other hotels for their own “tranquility.” At first light yesterday firemen and police returned to the scene to secure the area and work carried on throughout the day. Jaume Cladera, a former Balearic Minister for Tourism and one of the hotel owners said that the guests were also moved because of the noise the week-long clear up operation will make. Cladera admitted that the collapse of the building coinciding with dinner time prevented a “catastrophe.” “I cannot express the worry we went through while staff tried to account for all of the guests,” Cladera said, before adding that he is unable to express his relief that nobody was injured. Initially it was thought that the recent heavy rains had caused the foundations to move, but yesterday it was confirmed that the foundations are solid and that there was no water running under the building. Cladera said that the architects who designed the complex do not understand what happened “and are very anxious to clear up the situation.” The full results of the investigation and the reason why the building collapsed are expected to be made official within the next seven days and yesterday work continued on clearing the rubble so engineers could examine the cement. While salvage teams continued their work, a steady flow of tourists and residents arrived at the scene to inspect the damage for themselves.