London Theatre ceiling collapses

(Update)
Nearly 90 people were hurt when the Apollo Theatre’s ceiling partially collapsed in London, England. One survivor described the situation as complete chaos. Incredibly, no one died in the theatre packed with some 700 people. Many of the injured looked like the walking wounded as they made their way out of the historic building.

A mystery play turned into real life horror.

Witness: “We heard a loud bang. I don’t think it was an explosion and the ceiling came down , a lot of dust, chandelier and wood and that sort of stuff landed on about 5 or 6 rows.”

Witness: “And we saw 2 or 3 people get up and then quite quickly the next row and the next row then we heard a crack.”

Theatre goers described hearing that cracking noise before the ceiling collapsed just after 8pm London time. It was about 40 minutes in to the play. The historic Apollo Theatre had about 700 people inside, including children.

Witness: “It was one of those surreal moments when something happens you think it’s part of the show and we just started looking for the nearest exit.”

Seven people were seriously hurt and more than 85 injured. Some people were trapped until the London Fire Brigade came to the rescue. Emergency officials discovered a section of the ceiling measuring about 33 feet by 33 feet had fallen.

Paul Rickett is with London Police: “Police and the other emergency services responded to reports at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue of a ceiling collapse. We put into a place a well-rehearsed plan. We declared and emergency incident and the police rolled in to be sure that all the other emergency services could gain access without hinderance.”

Officials haven’t found anything suspicious about the collapse. They’ll be using structural engineers to find out how it happened. The Apollo Theatre is 112 years old.