Concrete balcony falls on a pedestrian in Buenos Aires province, killing him

The balcony fell Thursday evening at Pedro Morán 65, in the La Sirena neighborhood, A24 reported. A party hall known as El Salón de Juan operates on the ground floor, and the floor above is a private home; its balcony came down onto the sidewalk. Álvarez, who lived in the neighborhood, had gone out to buy meat. Officers from the local 2nd precinct answered a 911 call, confirmed he was dead and cordoned off the area.

Prosecutors' unit UFI No. 8 in Florencio Varela opened the case under the provisional heading of homicidio culposo, Argentina's term for causing a death through negligence. No one has been charged. Prosecutors ordered technical studies of the balcony's condition before it fell, covering the strength of the materials, its state of repair and whether construction defects or poor maintenance played a part, according to A24. Infobae, citing police, gave the unit as UFI 6.

A neighbor told reporters the balcony had no beams and no steel reinforcing bars. That is her account: A24 noted it has to be checked against the expert findings, and the cause has not been established. After the first inspections, municipal crews loaded the broken concrete onto a truck and cleared the sidewalk.

Falling building parts have killed pedestrians in Argentina before. In March 2024 a 74-year-old woman died in the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires when a ninth-floor balcony railing blew off in a storm, Infobae recalled. On Nov. 5 we reported that a prosecutor in Córdoba is seeking a trial for an engineer and an architect after a tower's brick facade killed a man.