Wednesday 17 June 2015

Balcony Collapse: 'Heartbreak' For Victims' Families

Balcony Collapse: 'Heartbreak' For Victims' Families (1)
Families of Irish students who died and were injured after a balcony collapsed have been arriving in California.
The tragedy happened at a birthday party in an apartment in Berkeley.

Five of the six young people who died were from the Republic of Ireland, and some of them were students at University College Dublin (UCD).
Counsellors are in place to help families and friends of the bereaved and injured. An Irish university has expressed "heartbreak" at the deaths.
Those who were killed have been named as:
  • Ashley Donohoe, 22
  • Olivia Burke, 21
  • Eoghan Culligan, 21
  • Niccolai Schuster, 21
  • Lorcan Miller, 21
  • Eimear Walsh, 21
Several others have been injured, some of them very seriously.
Ms Donohoe, who had dual US-Irish citizenship, lived in California while the other five who died all had home addresses in the Republic of Ireland.
Mr Culligan and Mr Schuster were both past pupils of St Mary's College in Rathmines, Dublin.
The majority of the victims were in the US on work visas, as part of the J1 USA summer work and travel programme.


As an investigation gets under way, a number of factors are being looked at.
Kevin Moore, chairman of the structural standards committee of the Structural Engineers Association of California, said these include whether the balcony was built to code, if it was overloaded and if rain or other weather had weakened it.
Berkeley officials said the building code at the time of construction required the balcony to be able to hold at least 60 lbs per sq ft. That requirement has since been raised to 100 lbs.
Berkeley spokesman Matthai Chakko said officials had not measured the balcony to find out how big it was and how much weight it was built to bear based on the 60 lbs. per sq ft standard in place when the building went up.
Mr Chakko also said there was no city requirement to post a weight restriction for balconies in apartments.
Balcony Collapse: 'Heartbreak' For Victims' Families (2)

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