A Frenchwoman injured when a restaurant balcony collapsed was doing well but remained in hospital yesterday as seven others were discharged.
Sources said the 46-year-old woman underwent a surgical intervention on Monday night and was no longer in critical condition. She suffered multiple fractures.
“She is conscious, stable and the outlook is positive,” a source told the Times of Malta.
The other seven French tourists suffered slight injuries.
The incident happened on Monday evening when a balcony at the Barracuda restaurant in Balluta Bay collapsed on to a balcony below belonging to the Piccolo Padre restaurant.
The restaurants occupy different levels of the same converted 18th-century villa by the sea. The restaurants are owned by the same company.
This is the third major incident in seven months involving groups injured at places of entertainment or public events
Attempts to contact the restaurant owners yesterday proved futile. A receptionist at Barracuda asked this newspaper to send its questions via e-mail but no replies were forthcoming at the time of writing. This newspaper wanted to know, among other things, when the balcony was last inspected for structural soundness.
The Barracuda balcony consisted of a platform supported by two stone columns with their bases on the rocks below. It was almost two storeys up from water’s edge. The remains of the columns could be seen at the bottom of the sea yesterday.
It is believed that about 40 patrons were on the balcony at the time of the accident. Most of them landed on the Piccolo Padre balcony, which broke their fall.
However, three tourists ended up on the rocks and in the sea
The Piccolo Padre balcony withstood the collapse and luckily nobody was having dinner there at the time. Patrons sitting inside the restaurant said they heard an “unusual roar” as the balcony crashed down.
This is the third major incident in seven months involving groups of people injured at places of entertainment or public events.
The first incident happened at the Paqpaqli għall-Istrina car event in aid of the Community Chest Fund at Malta International Airport last October, when a supercar plummeted into bystanders, injuring 26.
A month later, 74 young people were injured when the glass bannister of a nightclub in Paceville gave way as the overcrowded club was being evacuated. Last January, the police issued charges against the club owners.
After the two incidents the government said it would be reorganising the Occupational Health and Safety Authority to give it a wider role to ensure safety standards in places frequented by the public.
A public consultation exercise ended in February. The process is still ongoing.