Collapsed building got all-clear in March

THE BUILDING that collapsed in Cork yesterday was deemed safe by city engineers a little more than two months ago.

The news emerged last night as investigations into the incident on Shandon Street continued.

Locals described a September 11-type scene as a huge cloud of dust billowed up the street shortly after Number 38 caved in at about 12.30pm, strewing rubble and masonry onto the footpath.

The phone boxes prevented three storeys of scaffolding and sections of a roof and wall from ripping through live electricity cables and crashing onto the street.

Eyewitnesses said it was a miracle that nobody was injured. The window of a parked car was smashed and the phone box were damaged.

At a meeting of Cork City Council last night, councillors called on city manager Joe Gavin to reassure the public that the city was doing all in its powers to ensure buildings are safe.

He said the council’s building controls unit inspected the building on March 20.

It was held with steel ties and they formed the view that it was not dangerous, he said.

But he said demolition work started afterwards on a neighbouring premises and he said it would be inappropriate to comment further.

He said the developers are responsible for the site’s safety. Developers Paul Forde and Tom Murray of Murrayforde Developments own numbers 37-40 Shandon Street and are renovating Number 39, which was deemed derelict, and Number 40.

Mr Murray said his engineers are still investigating the collapse and declined to comment further. Emergency services rushed to the scene after the incident.

Third officer with Cork City Fire Service Gerry Myers said there was only one thing that prevented serious injury.

“The whole roof collapsed, but the phone box saved it. There were three-phase cables right beside it and if it went through them the whole place could have gone up. If the phone box was not there the building would have come out onto the road,” he said.

“There were three people on the site, but they were not hurt. It was amazing.”

Angeline Murphy, who lives uphill from the site, was sitting outside her cousin’s house when she heard the roof above the old Linda’s Hair Salon begin to cave in.

“There was a bang and you could see this big cloud of dust coming up from where they were building. The whole top of the building came down first. It was like something you would see in a movie or on September 11, all the dust rising up in a cloud,” she said.

“You couldn’t see anything, it was just all dust for a few minutes. We did not know what happened, just dust everywhere,” said local shop worker Amanda O’Gorman.

The road was sealed off and the scaffolding was propped up with a teleporter machine.

It was later decided to knock numbers 37 and 38 to first floor level for safety reasons.