Terminal may be levelled
2004-05-24 11:15
Paris - Officials at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport were considering on Monday whether to level altogether a glitzy new terminal following the deadly collapse of its vaulted roof.
Authorities lowered the death toll from Sunday's collapse to four from five, saying sniffer dogs had at first appeared to locate two bodies at one spot under the rubble but in fact found one.
With many in France stunned by the collapse, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited the scene, and the airport's head said investigations would help decide whether to scrap Terminal 2E.
"If all these rings that make up this terminal are irrecoverable, we'll tear it all down, of course," Paris airports authority President Pierre Graff was quoted in daily Le Parisien daily as saying, referring to steel rings that form a spine in the building. "We will take no risks when it comes to security."
The vaulted roof, touted as a jewel of design, safety and comfort, caved in as passengers arrived on Sunday morning.
The roof fell onto a waiting area in the futuristic terminal that sits on pylons, pulling down outer walls and crashing through a boarding ramp and onto several parked cars below.
A few cracking sounds preceded the crash as a 30-metre portion of the concrete, steel and glass roof caved in just before 07:00 on Sunday. Two separate probes were under way.
"How is this possible?" wrote Le Parisien on Monday's front page.
The terminal, a tunnel-shaped construction that is hundreds of metres long, was evacuated and remained closed. The terminal mainly serves Air France, which warned of continued delays.
The tragedy comes as France braces for the influx of summer tourists who will pour into Charles de Gaulle airport, the country's busiest and among the largest in Europe.
After at least two construction delays, the $890m terminal, with slots for 17 aircraft, opened last June. The French TV network LCI said the delays were caused by safety issues.
The terminal in the Paris suburb of Roissy was designed to handle 10 million passengers a year. The distinctive ceiling is honeycombed with hundreds of square windows that bathe the area inside with light.
- AP