Slovakia: Two settlement children die in the ruins of an unoccupied building

The Slovak Republic Press Agency (Tisková agentura Slovenské republiky – TASR) reports that two children died just after 12 PM yesterday in the village of Lomnička (Stará Ľubovňa district). The children were buried by the collapsed ruins of an unoccupied building in their settlement. Pavol Vravec, the operations commander for the Regional Directorate of the Emergency and Firefighting Corps in Prešov, said seven firefighters intervened at the scene using heat-seeking cameras to search the ruins for survivors.

"It was an unoccupied cabin. One child died at the scene. People from the settlement pulled him out dead. They did their best to revive the other child, to no avail," Vravec told TASR.

Vravec said he believed it had only been a question of time before the building collapsed, and recent heavy snowfall did not help. He said the dead children were five and 12 years of age.

"When the emergency medical services unit arrived at the scene, both children had already been pulled out from beneath the debris by their relatives and brought indoors. The girl suffered serious head injuries which she could not survive," said Alena Lacyková-Krčová, a spokesperson for the Falck group.

Lacyková-Krčová said the injured boy showed no signs of life and had suffered a large laceration to his side. "Even though the EMTs spent 30 minutes trying to revive him, they were unfortunately unsuccessful. The doctor had to rule him deceased," she said.

The children’s parents said the children had just run into the building while their mother was preparing lunch. "I was cooking lunch and the children told me they were just going to the bathroom. I had no idea what was going on, I just heard shouting and that something was happening," the weeping mother told news server SME.sk. She and her husband have been raising six children.

The masonry of the building, which belongs to the municipality, collapsed. The municipality purchased the structure a couple of years ago, but it remained dangerous and neglected even though children often visited it.