At least twelve die as balcony collapses

At least 12 young people died and as many as 35 were injured early today when an overloaded second-floor balcony on an apartment building collapsed during a party early today, authorities said.

It is thought that dozens of people might have been standing on the balcony when it gave way shortly past midnight, knocking the first-floor balcony to the ground and trapping some people in a basement stairwell, authorities said.

“There was chaos,” Chicago Fire Commissioner James Joyce said of the scene that greeted the first emergency workers to arrive.

“There were people screaming and crying in the alley.”

Eleven people were pronounced dead at the scene and 35 others were taken to area hospitals, he said.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office later confirmed that another person was pronounced dead at Advocate Illinois Medical Centre.

The collapse happened in the Wrigleyville neighbourhood on the city’s North Side.

“It was simply a case of too many people in a small space,” Joyce said.

Fina Cannon, a young woman who was at the party, said a large number of people had been on the second-floor balcony, and others were on the first-floor balcony.

All the guests were in their early 20s, and many had graduated several years ago from New Trier High School in Chicago’s northern suburbs, she told Chicago cable television station CLTV.

She went into the building from the rear area, but avoided the balconies after getting to the party.

She was in the back kitchen, looking out at the porch, when it collapsed.

“All of a sudden I saw all these heads going down,” Cannon said. “The floor just dropped out from underneath them. They all went down in unison.”

Michelle Myers said her son, who was on the porch, managed to jump to the kitchen doorway as the floor gave way.

Fire Commissioner Joyce issued a message of caution about safety during Chicago’s annual Gay Pride Parade, which was scheduled to take place later today in the same general neighbourhood.

“It’s a tragic case of overloading,” he said.

Officials were concerned that the parade would lead to balconies becoming overloaded, he said, adding that they were urging everyone to use their common sense.

Chicago Police said as many as 40 or 50 people might have been on the balcony at the time of the collapse – far more than they were designed to hold, according to neighbours.

“The balconies could probably facilitate 20 to 30 people,” said one neighbour, Dr David Guelich, an orthopaedic surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where some of the victims were taken.

Witnesses said the rails of the second-floor balcony were still in place several hours after the collapse, but the floor had fallen out completely.

Neighbours said they saw emergency workers using chain saws to cut through the debris to get to the victims.