NEWS: Paris airport roof collapse kills six

Sunday morning 6 people died when the roof of a newly contructed part of the Paris airport Charles de Gaulle collapsed. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse, but cracks and falling dust had been reported before the collapse.

In August 2000, rock group U2 chose the airport to shoot the video for their single 'Beautiful Day'.

As you can see in this photo, taken from the U2 video, the roof is constructed out of glass and steel. Terminal 2E cost 750m euros to build and was opened in 2003.


Reports say sections of the roof fell onto a boarding footway. The passage in turn collapsed onto airport service vehicles parked underneath.

A spokesman for the airport said that the affected area had been relatively quiet at the time of the collapse. "Several tonnes of concrete and glass have collapsed," Laurent Vibert, a spokesman for the fire service told LCI television.

Rubble was strewn over a 30m area.

"Some people heard cracks before the accident and there was concrete dust coming from the ceiling. This was a very prestigious hall and it's a very hard day for us today," an airport spokesman told reporters outside the terminal.






[Edited on 23-5-2004 by Zion Mainframe]

Ok I know this is getting kind of old but I had something I wanted to share on this subject. I was visiting family in Germany when this happened. I believe it was CNN Europe (or whatever its called) that reported that the defects in this new terminal are so wide spread that the new terminal may have to be demolished. Is this a case of the media fudging the facts to make up a non story or can anyone support the claim? Is the new terminal indeed doomed to be demolished? The way it was explained is that the French government put a great deal of pressure on the contractor to finish the job early and the entire project was loaded with corrpution.

Your thoughts.