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From The Times
May 24, 2004

Five killed as new terminal building collapses at airport

From Adam Sage in Paris
AT LEAST five people died and three were injured when a new terminal building collapsed at Paris’s main airport yesterday. A sixth body could still be under the rubble.

The victims were killed when a 30metre section of Terminal 2E snapped and fell on to a walkway leading to the aircraft at Charles de Gaulle airport, northeast of the capital. They were buried under tonnes of twisted steel, broken concrete and shattered glass.

President Chirac has ordered an urgent inquiry into the tragedy.

Airport managers said that passengers and staff had noticed cracks in the wall shortly before it collapsed at 6.57am.

It emerged last night that instead of ordering passengers to leave, police had photographed the crack and taken urgent action only when another crack appeared. Minutes later, the building collapsed.One employee said: “I was about 50 metres away when it happened and I suddenly heard a crack, then a crash.”

Airport staff said that the mostly likely causes were a design fault or a mistake during construction of the £500 million terminal last year.Unions said that they had warned managers last summer that safety could be compromised by the speed of the work.

The three people injured were all policeman called to the scene, according to Michel Clerel, chief doctor of Aeroports de Paris, which runs the airport. He added that one of the dead was Chinese.

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