The neighbours of the L9 sinkhole will have to remain out of their homes for at least three days

BarcelonaThe residents of the 93 apartments in the Sant Gervasi – la Bonanova neighborhood, evacuated this Tuesday due to the sinkhole caused by the works on line 9 of the metro, will have to remain out of their homes for a few more days. In statements to journalists, the director general of Mobility Infrastructure of the Department of Territory, Ramon Ramírez, explained that the stability of the buildings needs to be assessed for three more days. This means that it will not be until Saturday morning when it can be assessed whether residents can start returning to the eight blocks.

During the past night, the work to refill the sinkhole — eight meters in diameter and four meters deep — that opened this Tuesday morning has been completed, and since early hours, technicians and firefighters have been inspecting the buildings again to check their condition. Ramírez explained, however, that "continuous monitoring" is necessary to ensure that the ground has stabilized and that access to the eight affected blocks can be regained without problems.

As he detailed, due to thermal changes between day and night, it is necessary to check "the behavior of the ground day by day and at the same hours in which the sinkhole occurred." For this reason, he said, it will not be until Saturday morning when firefighters and technicians can assess if a "staggered return" of residents to their homes can be made. In parallel with the ground monitoring over these three days, all affected apartments will be inspected to check for serious pathologies derived from the sinkhole.

The residents — who also had an informative meeting this morning at the Vil·la Florida Civic Center — will have to find an alternative or turn to the Social Emergency and Urgency Center of Barcelona (CUESB) to get by in the coming days. Last night, everyone had found a place to stay, and only two people had to use the municipal emergency services. A firefighters' tent has also been set up in the middle of Frederic Soler square to attend to residents who need it 24 hours a day.

Previous incidents

Regarding the complaints about the appearance of cracks in the street and buildings weeks before Tuesday's sinkhole, the director of Projects for the Department of Territory, Begoña Castiblanque, emphasized that they have an established protocol and that they analyze all incidents that reach them. In this case, she explained that they had received some that were being analyzed but that there were not many from the area where the sinkhole eventually occurred.

Castiblanque also explained that regarding the subsoil material, there is a change where the terrain goes from being predominantly granite to slate, but she stressed that it is a few meters further back from where the sinkhole occurred.