Palm tree that fell and killed woman in Barcelona could have collapsed due to lack of water

The Barcelona council believes the palm tree that fell last Thursday in the city's Raval neighborhood, killing a 20-year-old woman, could have collapsed due to a lack of water.

This is the main hypothesis Parcs i Jardins, the city's parks and gardens authority, is working with as it awaits the conclusions of a report that was commissioned to determine the cause of the fatal incident.

"The tree probably fractured due to the drought," Joan Guitart, who is in charge of tree management at Parcs i Jardins, told the press on Wednesday. "Because of this, we've decided to start watering date palms again."

Although this particular kind of palm tree is usually only watered the first four years after it is planted, it can be more vulnerable to drier than usual conditions than other species. 

"Palm trees suffer in droughts," Guitart said, adding that they had not ruled out watering other large species of trees too. 

The city stopped irrigating its parks and gardens last March as a water-saving measure amid the ongoing drought. 

Raval residents, however, had long worried that the palm tree at Plaça Emili Vendrell square and Carrer de Joaquim Costa street could be dangerous. 

"Locals had been complaining for years that this tree could cause an accident," Antonio Ríos, who lives in the neighborhood, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN). 

In the meantime, Parcs i Jardins has also begun to inspect other large trees similar to that which fell, cutting down those that are determined to be at risk of falling. 

All in all, they are set to inspect around 900 trees in the coming days and have so far cut down 8 preventively.