At least three dead and 74 injured after a roof collapsed in a shopping mall in Peru

At least three people were killed and 74 injured when the roof of a shopping mall in Peru collapsed, authorities said on Friday. The accident occurred at the Real Plaza in Trujillo (northwest), the country's third most populous city, some 500 kilometers north of the capital, Lima.
 

“At this stage, we have three dead, two men and a woman,” Commander Gelqui Gomez, a fire department official on the scene, told America TV. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed the figure of three dead in a message posted on its X account. “We have evacuated 74 injured, including ten children, to hospitals and clinics. There are 11 seriously injured,” local government health official Anibal Morillo told RPP radio.

 

Dozens of families were in the Real Plaza food court at the time of the collapse, according to local media. At the scene, rescue and search operations are continuing, with more than a hundred firefighters and police deployed, according to TV footage. “There's a child trapped” under the metal structures of the roof, Anibal Morillo also said, this time to broadcaster Panamericana.
 

The Regional Emergency Operations Centre said on X that the accident had taken place at 8.41pm local time on Friday (2.41amSaturday), but was not reported until around half an hour later. “We need hydraulic cranes to be able to lift the part of the roof that has not yet been removed because it is very heavy,” explained Interior Minister Juan José Santivañez on Canal N channel.