After their neighbour’s house fell in, Loredana Borg Agius moved to the other side of her home, and began sleeping in an armchair there – she didn’t dare risk sleeping near the wall closest to the collapse, especially after all the cracks started appearing.

“With the passage of time, more cracks are appearing, the bricks are becoming more visible and have come apart from the supporting wall of the adjacent building; there is the yard belonging to my mother in law and the adjacent maisonette, as you can see the part where there are cracks is highly dangerous. We are not just talking about one or two floors here. This goes on till the top”, Ms Borg Agius said in an interview with TVM.

Now, Borg Agius is speaking out a month after one of her neighbours, a 77-year-old woman, was trapped inside her apartment after part of their block on Main Street, Mellieħa, collapsed.

Concerned that the supporting wall that separates the collapsed building from their family’s yard may itself collapse, Borg Agius spoke to her family architect for reassurance.

However, the architect warned that this wall was dangerous as well.

A month after members of the block saw their neighbours run out of their collapsing home in a plume of dust, they now live in fear that that the rest of the building will collapse any day now. And it is not only Borg Agius – an elderly couple who live with a disabled son in the block as well, in just one example of other families who have bee victimised by this shocking collapse.

“I have not slept well since the house fell. I am sleeping on an armchair because I feel more comfortable there as I feel it is safer. We would like this situation resolved as quickly as possible,” she said. “Because of the danger of further collapse, we were advised not to use the back rooms; the kitchen and bedroom. During the night we often hear a noise and wake up in a panic.”

Ms Borg Agius said she hopes she and her neighbours do not end up buried alive under piles of rubble before the situation is fixed.