HAIL ROOF COLLAPSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17978, 31 December 1921, Page 9

HAIL ROOF COLLAPSES.

500 PEOPLE IN DANGER,

MANY BURIED IN WRECKAGE

DRAMATIC END TO CONCERT.

While over 500 people were listening to a concert in the Temperance Hall, Walsall, England, the roof collapsed with fatal results. A member of a troupe of pierrots was singing a song entitled " Where shall we be in a hundred years?" and was in the middle of the line "You shall not be here and we shall not be here" when the crash came. There was an ominous cracking; % tben tons of woodwork and plaster fell on the audience, and the hall was 'plunged into darkness. Besides the roof, a portion of the gallery near.the stage crashed down. A wild panic followed. Terror-stricken women and children with faces blackened with dust and clothing torn rushed for the doon and fought their way into the street. Many were buried under the wreckage, and the absence of light made the work of rescue vtry difficult. Doctors and nurses, were quickly on the scene, and the tire brigade, under the chief constable, also turned out to help. Several members of the audience were seriously injured, and these were removed to hospital in motors, while others were treated in the Y.M.C.A. building opposite the hall. Mrs. Elizabeth Drew, of Bath. Road, Walsall, died in hospital from spinal injuries. "This was the first concert we had attended since our courting days," said her husband. " She was conscious to within a short time of her death, and told me what occurred. She was sitting with a son and a girl friend named Lee not far from the stage, when there was a terrible crash. Down came tons of ceiling. Miss Lee managed to scramble from beneath the wreckage, but my wife was badly hurt, and our son was also cut about the head." Another son stated that shortly before the start of the performance a quantity of plaster came down, and the stewards kept people away from that partof 'he hall. Another Btory of the accident is that one of the wooden principals supporting the roof; dislodged apparently through a wall of the building -bulging outwards. Fortunately, a massive beam in falling was caught by the balcony which runs round the hall, and remained fixed there. Had it fallen to the ground many lives would have been lost. ' A considerable number of the audience escaped by breaking the windows and crawling through the iron casements. Although scores of people received injuries there were only seven hospital cases. • The hall is about 60 years old, and as it had recently been renovated it wa> deemed to be quite safe. It had lately been used as a Labour Exchange.