Twenty-four candles and flowers pay homage starting this Friday in the patio of the old Franciscan Convent of Abona granadilla to the victims of the tragedy that took place 60 years ago. On the occasion of the anniversary, the Granadilla City Council organized a small event that was attended by the mayor, José Domingo Regalado, and the parish priest of Granadilla, Jesús Pérez Báez.
At half past two in the afternoon of February 3, 1963, he made this Friday just 60 years old, 23 people died while waiting to process the National Identity Document (DNI) in the old Franciscan convent of Granadilla de Abona. Only one of them, a woman, died due to the partial collapse of the gallery on the second floor of the building that housed municipal offices and the courts. The panic derived from the collapse caused the remaining 22 victims among the almost a thousand people who tried to leave the building, after taking refuge from the rain that fell that day in the interior galleries and in the courtyard, although the final number of deaths rose to 24 ( 18 women and 6 men).
“The noise of the materials and people that fell into the inner courtyard on those gathered unleashed a situation of uncertainty and general panic among those present that degenerated into a tragedy, producing, for this reason, such a high number of victims,” reflects one of the chronicles. of the moment, in which suffocation and crushing are also indicated as the main causes of the death toll, which made this event the landslide with the most victims in the history of Tenerife.
The mayor dedicated a message of “affection and affection” to the victims and relatives of the deceased in one of the greatest civil tragedies in Tenerife and that will remain forever in the collective memory of the people. For his part, the parish priest spoke a few words of consolation and in memory of all those affected by this terrible incident.
Most of those affected died fleeing from the collapse of the Franciscan Convent
Candles and flowers commemorate that fateful event on this day, next to the marble plaque where the names and surnames of those who died in the greatest catastrophe in the history of Granadilla de Abona are inscribed: Luis Villalba Flores, Manuel Rancel Martín, Isabel González, Victoria Gaspar González, María Mercedes Perera Hernández, Cecilia Delgado, Mercedes Rodríguez, Fernanda Oramas, María del Rosario Casanova, Consuelo Pimienta, Blanca Pimienta, Leonicia Torres, José Ramón García Vidal, Carmen Vidal González, José Toledo Rancel, Lorenza González, Carmen Casañas, Rosa Casañas, Ignacio Casañas, Soledad González, Rosa Quintero, Guadalupe Domínguez, María Esther Martín and José Martín González.
After a long, gray, cold and sad night, there was a massive parade of coffins and people who walked the central artery of the Villa, on the way to the cemetery, in which some estimated 20,000 people among those attending the funeral. Now, on the 60th anniversary of such an unfortunate event, the people of Granadilla reiterate their deep gratitude to all those who were altruistically by their side.
