The owner of a popular beach club in Majorca where four people were killed in a terrace collapse has been arrested for manslaughter as cops revealed the illegal ‘overloaded’ structure ‘had not been reinforced’.
Austrian businessman Christian Arnsteiner was apprehended this morning and is expected to be taken to the Via Alemanya court in the island capital Palma this afternoon after having his fingerprints taken.
The arrest comes comes after last month’s fatal incident at Medusa Beach Club on Cartago Street in Playa de Palma that left four dead and 14 others injured.
British tourists were feared to have been among the casualties in the May 23 tragedy before it emerged that most of the tourists in the establishment were Dutch.
A 23-year-old female worker from Navarre, two German tourists aged 20 and 30 and another 44-year-old customer, a Senegalese resident of Palma, lost their lives in the devastating incident, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin.
Emergency staff work after a two-storey beach club terrace collapsed on Playa de Palma, south of the Spanish Mediterranean island’s capital Palma de Majorca, on May 23, 2024
Around one hundred emergency responders raced to the scene of the incident, identified locally as a beach bar in the city called the Medusa Beach Club
Horrific scenes show rescue workers attempting to pull survivors from the building
In a statement confirming the arrest today, National Police in Majorca said: ‘The Homicide Group of the National Police has arrested the head of a company that operated a business that suffered a partial collapse.
‘The events took place on May 23, at around 8:20pm, on the seafront of Playa de Palma, when part of a terrace where customers and workers of a leisure establishment were located collapsed, falling from the first floor to the basement belonging to another leisure establishment that was closed to the public at the time.
‘As a result of the collapse, four people died and another 14 people suffered injuries of varying degrees of severity.
‘The emergency services of the National Police, Local Police, Fire Brigade and several ambulances attended to those affected’.
It added that from that moment, an investigation was launched by the homicide department and together with the technical reports from Palma Town Hall, determined that part of a roof had collapsed which had been joined to the terrace of the premises despite the fact it had no licence or permit.
The document prepared by the officials of the Urban Planning Department and the Palma Fire Department also revealed that the basement of the premises, in which the Coco Rico nightclub was located, did have a valid activities license, according to a report from Ultima Hora.
‘The structure had not been reinforced for such use and as a result of the modifications had been overloaded with weight,’ the statement continued.
‘This added weight to the structure together with the weight of the people occupying the space at the time of the incident caused the structure to collapse.
‘Once the investigation was concluded, the officers of the National Police Homicide Group arrested the manager of the company that operated the business over his alleged involvement in four cases of manslaughter and six cases of serious injury through gross negligence.’
Further arrests have not been ruled out.
The structural transformations of the beach club were allegedly noticed by municipal technicians who saw the building undergo a series of changes, with a Technical Building Inspection in 2017 ruling that the area of the premises was already classified as not passable for expansion works, according to the Spanish newspaper.
At the scene of the horror collapse last month, it was reported that several customers had been dancing in the ‘chill out’ zone when the terrace suddenly collapsed at their feet.
Rubble fell to the ground floor, which then smashed through to the basement and within seconds panic took over the area.
Customers who had managed to survive yelled for help and witnesses to the destruction began to call emergency services.
‘In one minute we received dozens of calls,’ said a police spokesperson last month.
When the first patrols arrived at the scene, they revealed to the Spanish outlet that debris was piled up on the ground floor of the two-story building.
Screams of those who survived, and those who were trapped could be heard echoing through the streets.
‘It was something horrendous,’ said a firefighter.
Cartago Street was temporarily closed so that emergency teams could clear the site and carry out their rescue mission undisturbed.