Berkeley balcony collapse: ‘Everyone’s just shocked, it’s horrible’

As dawn broke in California, the San Francisco bay area woke up to news of the horrific events that had unfolded in the student city of Berkeley shortly before 1am California time.

By then the residents of Library Gardens were all too familiar with what had happened — the celebration of a 21st birthday turned to tragedy as a fourth-floor balcony collapsed, sending a dozen people to the pavement below.

Four young Irish students were pronounced dead at the scene, a further two passed away in hospital, and now families on the other side of the Atlantic are agonisingly waiting to see what fate befalls the seven others injured in the collapse.