The restaurant which collapsed in Majorca, killing four people, promoted its newly renovated rooftop terrace the day before it caved in.

Two female tourists, believed to be German, and two locals died on Thursday night when the rooftop area of the Medusa Beach Club collapsed onto diners eating and drinking on floors below.

According to the Balearic Islands emergency service coordinator, seven other people are in hospital with very serious injuries and nine more are described as being seriously injured.

One of the four victims has been named as 44-year-old Abdoulaye Diop, a man of Senegalese origin who is reported to have worked in the Palma Beach area as a nightclub doorman.

Medusa Beach Club on Wednesday announced it had renovated its rooftop restaurant in an Instagram post.

It shared a picture of the terrace on social media with a glass balcony looking over Palma’s beach with the caption “Totally different, New rooftop”.

It appears that part of the structure of the rooftop terrace collapsed due to excess weight. According to Eder García, Palma’s fire service chief, the supporting structure of the terrace gave way and crashed down onto diners below.

According to local reports, one of the four deceased was a 23-year-old Spaniard who was an employee at the beach club, while the other two dead are reported to be female friends aged 20 and 30 who were on holiday together from Germany.

The Telegraph understands that there are no British nationals among those killed.

Diop became a local hero after he and a friend rescued a man who was drowning in the sea off Palma Beach seven years ago.

Diop told the local newspaper Ultima Hora at the time how he had been walking along the beach with a friend on a cold and dark December evening in 2017, when a distressed woman said that her male companion had gone for a swim and had not returned to the shore.

Diop said he spotted the man with the help of a police officer’s torch and swam out to sea to rescue him.

“It was two degrees and the water was freezing but when you see a person in that situation you act without thinking to save their life,” Diop said.

Those near the beachfront restaurant and bar at the time of the collapse say that they heard a loud bang just after 8pm as the rooftop structure gave way. No explanation has yet been given for the collapse beyond reports that the venue was busy and that some customers were dancing in the upstairs terrace.

The rooftop space fell directly onto the ground floor of the restaurant, causing a further collapse of the structure downwards into the building’s basement and crushing customers.

Emergency teams including firefighters, ambulances and police arrived quickly at the scene of the collapse and began to remove the dead and injured from the rubble.

Local police asked bystanders to move away and to remain silent as rescue workers worked into the night in the search for more people buried under the rubble.

Palma Beach is a lively resort area that is especially popular with German tourists.

Palma city council has declared three days of official mourning for the dead.