A 1900 house collapses in a town in León: “I could collapse at any time”

A house in the Leonese town of San Pedro de las Dueñas has come down the morning of this Saturday, May 3. The 8.00 hours passed when the building, which for months had important cracks and structural damage, collapsed and collapsed completely in one of the main streets that give access to the town near Sahagún.

At the moment it is unknown if someone has been injured after the collapse, although the house was without tenants in recent months.

The situation of the property, located at number 26 of San Pedro de Dueñas Street, worried the neighbors for months. On March 19 of this year, one of them registered with the City Council a request so that the Consistory “urgent” takes measures to avoid the collapse of the property or promote its controlled demolition in case of proceeding.

A neighbor warned of the situation in March

In the letter, the neighbor who is also a technical engineer in public works with a specialty in civil constructions, informs the Consistory the “ruinous” state of the property with the objective that the municipal authority would act briefly. “It is not necessary to have technical knowledge to see that the facade is detaching and that it is a matter of days or hours that ends up falling completely with the risk that this supposes for pedestrians,” explains the text, where he points out that this street is precisely one of those that gives access to the people and therefore very busy.

In the focus of your application puts the appearance of cracks on the facade. A sign that something was not going well since “these types of adobe double plant buildings, which apparently do not have a metal or reinforced concrete internal structure, but rely on their own walls, become unstable when the cracks appear in the exterior walls that are the only ones that support it.”

“At any time a misfortune can occur”

In recent months the owners of the house would have undertaken works inside that they could be behind the appearance of these deficiencies in the structure. Already in the month of March it was appreciated that «part of the brick foundation on which the main facade is supported is clearly displaced, which originates a differential seat that has detached the lintel and the jambas of the entrance door. In addition, several vertical cracks distributed by the facade threaten the structural security of the building, ”follows the neighbor’s writing.

Consequently, he already warned in mid -March: «All this can lead to a collapse of the building and therefore a short -term collapse. At any time a misfortune can occur, given that these streets make virtually the only access to enter the town ».

The house got up in 1900

Days later, the City of San Pedro de Dueñas accused the reception of the application and assured the neighbor that the situation was going to proceed and, seen, in his case, the corresponding procedure of declaration of imminent ruin, ordinary order of execution or archive of the actions will be initiated.

The house, built in the year 1900 and with use of housing and warehouse, finally succumbed and this Saturday, May 3, first thing was collapsed.

In the place the Civil Guard appeared, while the neighbors denounce the delay of the firefighters to go to the point to assess the damages. About 10.20, a endowment finally arrived to cordon off the area while progressing the recess work to open the way between the remains of the house.