Narrow escape from falling masonry

ONE NICOSIA resident had a lucky escape yesterday morning when masonry falling from a dilapidated building landed on his road-side coffee table, missing him by inches.

“There I was enjoying my morning coffee when these great big rocks come crashing down on my table. It could have been my head!,” the betting-shop owner told the Cyprus Mail.

The building in question, at number 39 Vassiliou Voulgaroctonou street in old Nicosia, is under a preservation order, a municipality official said. Sizeable parts of the sandstone blocks above one of the abandoned home’s front windows came crashing down.

But municipality building inspector Yiannakis Lazarou – who inspected the scene of the near accident – said this had been the only unsafe part of the building.

“People on the street had seen the loose material and had meant to knock it down but had never got round to it,” he said.

The municipality did not plan to take any action following the incident, he said. “The building is old but it is in good condition,” he said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.