The building collapse attorneys at Denena Points, PC update earlier posts to report that rescue efforts reportedly have concluded at the Market Street site of the deadly Philadelphia building collapse. 6 victims have been pronounced dead. At least 13 people were injured in the Center City collapse and one of them remains in critical condition.
The true tragedy of this deadly Philadelphia building collapse is that the fatally injured victims were in no way associated with the building that fell. They were innocent employees and shoppers at the Salvation Army Thrift Store next door. In both shopping and working at the store, they were helping others.
For one of the employees, Wednesday tragically marked both the first and last day on the job. A new job in these difficult economic times is usually something to celebrate and represents new hope for a person and their family. But for one family, our building collapse attorneys relate that a new job now represents tragedy.
Those fatally injured in the tragic Philadelphia building collapse have been identified as:
The thoughts and prayers of the building collapse attorneys at Denena Points, PC are with the families and friends of the deceased victims and with the injured victims of the tragedy at this time.
When the 4-story Market Street building that had been undergoing demolition suddenly fell, one of its walls fell through the roof of the Salvation Army Thrift Store, burying shoppers and employees in the rubble. Information available to date indicates that the wall fell and the fatal Center City collapse occurred because of unsafe demolition practices and failure to shore up and brace remaining walls and structural members as pieces of the building were removed.
In our years of experience, our building collapse attorneys have seen that failure to properly brace buildings during construction or demolition is one of the primary reasons for their collapse. The magnitude of this tragedy at the Salvation Army Thrift Store and the negligent demolition practices that brought it about are not short of appalling.
Much is being written now about the criminal record of the contractor in charge of the demolition and about the business history as a “porn king” of the owner of the building. (Sources: NBC 10 Philadelphia by way of Dylan Stableford, Yahoo News, The Lookout; Peter Loftus and Eliot Brown, The Wall Street Journal; and Newsworks WHYY; 6/6/13)
Click the link to read more about the deadly Philadelphia building collapse and witness statements implicating unsafe demolition practices as a cause of the tragedy.