When Isabelle Bonnici rushed to the site of a collapsed building in Corradino, she was told her son was alive and in hospital.
She later found out later that he was, in fact, still buried under the rubble.
In her first on-camera interview since her son Jean Paul Sofia died six months ago, Isabelle recalled the gruelling details of that December 3 day when a timber factory under construction collapsed, burying six people and leaving a 20-year-old dead.
When she got to the site of the collapse on that fateful day, she was relieved to find a police officer who told her he was sure he saw her son being pulled out from the rubble and taken to hospital alive.
“I felt so relieved and thanked our Lady of Ta’ Pinu for sparing us the tragedy. But when I went to hospital and asked to see him, the staff told me that nobody by that name had been admitted. I returned to the site of the collapse and was told that he was still under the rubble.”
Long hours of waiting ensued, as rescue workers searched in vain for the young man.“As the hours passed during the search my hopes were already shrinking, but I somehow still longed for some sort of miracle. Hope is the last thing to die, I guess.”
Rescuers found Jean Paul dead 15 hours later.
“My life changed forever,” Isabelle Times of Malta.
Isabelle learned of the collapse from her son’s friend, who told her that Jean Paul’s boss had asked him to deliver some tools to a construction site there.
CCTV footage indicates that Jean Paul had been inside the building for around seven minutes when it collapsed and killed him.
“Just imagine that – he walked in for a few minutes to deliver some tools and the building had to collapse just then, before he could walk out,” said Isabelle, who had previously lost another son, also called Jean Paul.
A magisterial inquiry into his death is yet to be concluded but since his death, his mother has also been campaigning for a public inquiry, supported by the Nationalist Party, which the prime minister has rebuffed.
Read the interview in full here.