Works resumed on Tuesday at a Guardamangia excavation site right next door to a building which partially collapsed last week, for what the developers’ architect described as “remedial works”.  

The architect for the site on Mimosa Street said that the contractor was reinforcing the building to make it safe, following the advice of a geologist who assessed the site’s geological foundation.

Residents living in the block next door were evacuated last Thursday after a wall adjacent to the building site collapsed.

The collapse – the third in as many months – spurred the government into action, with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat ordering a suspension of all excavation and demolition works across the country until revised regulations could be rushed through parliament.

A magisterial inquiry has been opened into the Mimosa Street incident but has been stalled due to the structural danger the partially collapsed building posed.

Tuesday’s works, the developer’s architect told Times of Malta, would temporarily buttress the structure and ensure it was safe. The police had given the go-ahead for the works to get underway, he added.

Residents have previously spoken to Times of Malta about their trauma and described being forced to sleep in a car for fear of being inside their own home.

On Tuesday, they said that they had not been informed that works would resume and complained that some of their possessions, which were buried in the collapse rubble, could have been bulldozed.

Activists are planning to march against construction impunity just a few hundred metres away from the site on Tuesday evening, with an activity that is scheduled to begin at 6pm outside St Luke’s Hospital.