Kayak club’s roof partially collapses

AN investigation is under way after the partial collapse of a kayak club building’s concrete roof yesterday.

A large concrete beam in the roof of the Phoenix Kayak Club’s storeroom on the Lee Road in Cork gave way just before 7am, and crashed on to the floor of the mass concrete building, damaging several boats.

Workmen nearby thought there had been an explosion and they contacted the emergency services.

Seven units of Cork City Fire Brigade, including specialist teams that deal with explosions, rushed to the scene at Inch Field, alongside University College Cork’s Environmental Research Institute.

They used infra-red and thermal imaging cameras to scan the rubble and once they established that no one was trapped inside, they used cutting equipment to enter the building.

Engineers from Cork County Council inspected the building later to establish the cause of the accident.

Club official Evan Roberts dismissed the incident as relatively minor and said the response “was blown out of proportion”.

“The roof is still there. It was just a beam. It’s a mass concrete building that was hit by a 40-foot container during the flooding and it’s still standing,” he said.

He said the incident will have little or no impact on club activities and that some of the club’s 100-strong members will cancel Sunday’s river outing and spend the day cleaning the store room, and will be back in action at the Lee Fields on Tuesday night.