According to latest information, all of the victims were construction workers, the Vaud cantonal police said on Friday afternoon.
In addition, four people were seriously injured and four others suffered moderate or minor injuries. One of the seriously injured was taken by helicopter to Geneva University Hospital. Six others had to be treated at Lausanne University Hospital.
Police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel told the French news agency AFP that they were still looking for one or two further missing persons.
The accident was reported to emergency services at 9:22am on Friday. The workers were building the “Prilly Phare” in the west of Lausanne – a 19-storey wooden residential tower set to contain 96 apartments. The “Malley Lumières” shopping centre is being extended by 14 storeys on its western side for the project.
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An employee in a pharmacy in the shopping center reported hearing a loud noise and seeing a huge cloud of dust. Several witnesses, including construction workers, told the Keystone-SDA news agency that a freight elevator had plunged downwards, taking the scaffolding on the north side of the building with it.
Authorities initially refused to confirm these statements or to provide any information on the cause or the exact nature of the accident. These are still unclear, they said. The public prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation.
The roads around the construction site, a nearby railway line and the access roads to the surrounding buildings remained closed on Friday afternoon, as further debris threatened to fall.
Adapted from German by DeepL/dos
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