Collapsed airport 'cracking'

2004-05-24 15:31

Roissy, France - New cracking sounds were heard on Monday in the terminal at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport where a deadly roof collapse occurred a day earlier. People working inside were immediately evacuated, an airport official said.

Terminal 2E has been indefinitely closed since a 30m section of the roof caved in about 07:00 on Sunday, killing four people.

However, investigators, police and others were working inside. When new cracking sounds were heard, it was evacuated.

"We feared that there would be another problem," said Corinne Bokobza, spokesperson for the airport authority, known as ADP.

"We're taking no risks."

Cracking and puffs of dust minutes before the Sunday accident proved a warning sign.

Bokobza said she did not know how many people were ordered out of the futuristic building that opened just 11 months ago.

The building, the pride of the airport, could be razed if investigations prove it cannot be made safe, the head of the airport authority was quoted on Monday as saying.

Officials, meanwhile, lowered the death toll from five to four. They explained on Monday that sniffer dogs had at first appeared to locate two bodies in the rubble of concrete, steel and glass. However, only one body was found.

Chinese travellers killed

"The fourth and fifth were a single and the same person," said rescue chief Frederic Monard, speaking to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who visited the accident scene early on Monday.

The body of one victim had been slashed in two, a rescue official said, asking not to be named.

The Chinese government said two Chinese travellers were among the dead. They were travelling from Shanghai to Mexico via Paris. Identities of the other victims were not immediately known.

Three people were slightly injured - all police officers or security personnel called to the scene when cracking appeared minutes before the collapse of a portion of the terminal's roof. They began evacuating people from the area minutes before the accident, perhaps sparing lives.

"We are very touched by the cruelty of this collapse," Raffarin said as he examined the site. Investigations "will bring out the truth," he added.

Two investigations, administrative and judicial, were getting underway, and experts from some of the 400 companies that took part in the terminal's construction went to the scene.

- AP