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At least 60 killed in Poland roof collapse
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-29 08:57
The snow-covered roof of a convention hall in southern
Poland collapsed Saturday with as many as 500 people inside for a racing pigeon
exhibition, killing at least 60 people and injuring at least 141, a rescue
official said Sunday.
"Unfortunately we have more tragic information: 60 people have
died," Andrzej Fiema, an official at the crisis management center organizing the rescue
effort in the city of Katowice, said on TVN24 television.
Rescue workers
remove snow and rubbles of a collapsed roof of the International Fair
building in Katowice, southern Poland, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006. The roof
collapsed during an international pigeon show, killing at least 26 people
and trapping inside hundreds of visitors and exhibitors.
[AP] |
A
priest outside the building's entrance prayed over the bodies of an adult and a
child covered by a blanket and a tarp, as rescue crews worked frantically
through the night in subfreezing temperatures to save those trapped inside.
Witnesses said people beneath the wreckage were calling family or emergency services on
their cell phones for help.
Franciszek Kowal escaped onto a terrace when he saw the roof starting to
fall, then jumped about 15 feet to safety.
"People tried to break windows in order to get out," Kowal told The
Associated Press. "People were hitting the panes with chairs, but the windows
were unbreakable. One of the panes finally broke, and they started to get out by
the window."
Fire brigade chaplain Capt. Henryk Kuczob, a Roman Catholic priest, said he
gave last rites to one of the injured, a 50-year-old man who later died.
"A second man was taken to the hospital," Kuczob said. "His 13-year-old
daughter is dead, but he doesn't know that yet. He's in shock."
"There are still a lot of people trapped in there, some half-frozen."
The weight of snow likely caused the roof to cave in at about 5:30 p.m., less
than two hours before the event was scheduled to close for the evening, Katowice
fire brigade spokesman Jaroslaw Wojtasik said.
Hundreds of firefighters responded along with search-and-rescue teams with
dogs and local miner rescue teams, Wojtasik said. Some 30 people gathered in a
building next to the site awaiting news of their loved ones.
Even passers-by pitched in.
Zbigniew Chmurzynski said he was on his way back from the movies with his
wife when they came upon the collapse. He said he raced home for his Labrador
retriever, then headed back to the site.
"My dog found two unconscious people," he said. "I just hope they'll
survive."
Temperatures dropped to 5 degrees after midnight and were expected to keep
falling.
Rescue workers pumped warm air into the ruin for those feared trapped inside,
as crews dug into the wreckage with saws and other equipment, using flashlights
and floodlights. The firefighters also used jacks to stabilize some of the
building's beams as they attempted to get to those trapped.
"Inside are people who are alive but have broken limbs or other injuries,"
Wojtasik said. "We can't use any heavy equipment."
He estimated the rescue effort could take another 40 hours.
An unidentified woman with bandages around her head, a bloodied chin and
scrapes on her face told TVN24 from her hospital bed that she feared one of her
friends was dead.
"I heard a snap like breaking matches as the roof fell on everybody. Then I
heard an unbelievable scream, and then I tried to escape like everybody else,"
she said. "Something fell on me, I turned around, somebody stepped on me, but on
my knees I was able to get out. I still don't know where some of my friends are
and I haven't had any contact with them — most likely one of them is dead."
The "Pigeon 2006" fair was made up of more than 120 exhibitors, including
groups from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine and Poland, according to
the fair's Web site.
The Jan. 27-29 fair was expecting a total of some 55,000 guests, customers
and visitors. A spokeswoman for the fair did not answer her phone.
Grzegorz Slyszyk, who said he was an attorney for building management, said
the structure, built in 2000, could not have collapsed from the snow because
excess snow was regularly cleared from the roof.
"The snow was last removed two weeks ago, and since then there hasn't been
much snow," he said. "Definitely, it's too early to speculate on a cause."
Katowice, some 200 miles south of Warsaw in a mining region, has been hit
with the same heavy snow this winter that has been plaguing much of eastern and
central Europe.
On Friday, snow caused a town hall's roof to collapse in the southern
Austrian town of Mariazell, though no injuries were reported.
On Jan. 2, the snow-covered roof of a skating rink collapsed, killing 15
people, including 12 children in the German Alpine spa town of Bad
Reichenhall.
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