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Mirari Artime
Basque Country
Wednesday, 3 July 2024, 11:33
"We have cheated death", said Mari Luz Celaya, completely overcome as she recounted the fright she experienced at midday on Tuesday when a gigantic boulder smashed into the façade of her farmhouse in Markina, in Spain's Basque Country, where her grandchildren usually run around. "I shudder to think if it had hit a little one. They usually play in that area", she explained, still in shock.
The resident of the Arretxinaga neighbourhood experienced the scare of her life. "My late husband always thought and said that one day that rock was going to fall on the farmhouse, but the truth is that it had been there for more than 200 years and you never think that it could happen", she reflected.
"If he could see it now, he would burst into tears", Mari Luz noted with sadness as she observed the state in which part of the building has been left. "Right now, all the material things that have been lost don't matter to me at all, I only think of my grandchildren and what could have happened to them", she repeated.
Unlike other similar buildings in the area, the affected farmhouse has its entrance at the back, directly in front of the hillside from where the enormous mass of quartz stone came crashing down. Not even the technicians who were sent to the site after the rock fall dared to put a tonnage on it, nor venture to guess the cause of the collapse.
"It seems that it could have been due to a combination of circumstances, from the constant and abundant rainfall to the fall of a tree in the area that could have caused the collapse", explained the town's mayor, Iratxe Lasa, who placed municipal resources at the disposal of the affected family.
When the rain stopped, Mari Luz decided to leave the kitchen for a while and go outside to clean and paint the door of the shed, located on the opposite side of the building. "It was eleven o'clock when I heard a huge impact, it was so big that I thought a construction lorry or something had overturned," she said.
"Instantly, I heard the sound of a leak and I started to smell gas," she explained. As she approached and saw what had happened and the damage to the roof, the façade and the porch, she tried to recover from the shock. Then she realised that he had to go into the house to get her mobile phone to call for help.
"I thought the farmhouse was going to explode, but yesterday was not my day to die, because as soon as I ran out to ask for help I found a group from the children's camp in the village", she said. "I was so nervous that I couldn't dial, luckily one of the group leaders helped me call the emergency services", she explained. "The municipal fire brigade also tried to help me". Firefighters cut off the gas and restored the electricity supply, which was also affected by the collapse.
"Fate, or whatever it was, wanted the children to be out at the time of the rock collapse. As it is the entrance to the farmhouse, they are always running around the area. We also have a big sofa right there, where they rest and take naps," she explained. "I can't even think about it, it's been a miracle", she repeated.
Although it will take several days to remove the gigantic boulder from the house, late in the afternoon Mari Luz Celaya returned to the property with some of her grandchildren who, oblivious to what had happened, returned to play non-stop. "I can't let them out of my sight", sighed the grandmother.
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