The collapse occurred outside working hours and no one was in the building. Antony Wiklund says that the full focus is on the staff feeling safe after what happened.
– Luckily, it's only used in the day. We are fully focused on our staff at this time. Right now we and a crisis team are sitting together with the staff, he tells Norran.
Techsam Electronics manufactures electronics applications and has a total of 80 employees, of which 29 people work in the current location. Production facilities were in the collapsed part of the building.
– We are working to make safe the parts of the property that remain.
Wiklund does not want to speculate on the cause at the moment.
– We will bring in external expertise for this, he says.
What happens now?
– Our full focus is on the staff. We have a strong owner who believes in the long term, so no one will be laid off. We will find both short-term and long-term solutions for this, says Wiklund.
Joakim Olsson at the rescue service in Umeå was the task leader during the night and has been on site at the collapsed building.
He explains that the collapsed production part is almost 1,000 square meters in size.
– But the building is so damaged that the warehouse part has also been affected. The roof has settled so much that the gable has been pushed out. The only thing that has escaped unscathed is the office part, he says.
Olsson has been in contact with the CEO.
– Now they are going to get help from a construction company to see how they can save the warehouse, says Olsson.
He also does not want to speculate on what caused the collapse, but he notes that there was a lot of snow on the roof.
– So there is a chance that it was the snow, but it's something that must be investigated.
Emergency services have cordoned off the property and secured the site. At 07:00, the operation was completed for the rescue services.
The police have also been on the scene. "Police cooperate with emergency services in their information gathering," the police write on their website.