Paphos Life

At around 1:30PM a loud bang was reported on Social Media at Tea For Two, along with footage of the aftermath. Early reports indicate two injuries. It looks like part of the roof above the top balcony collapsed.

A short film was posted to Social Media by Steve Dodson. It shows the aftermath of the supposed collapse. Fire men are already on the scene. According to comments on the film, two ladies were injured.

Read the story and chat about it below...
 

Two customers in hospital in serious condition confirmed.

Another balcony collapsed at noon on Saturday in a building on the main Poseidon Avenue in Kato Paphos, in the area of ​​the municipal bathrooms.

The balcony collapsed, the debris fell on the pergola of a restaurant located on the ground floor of the building, resulting in two patrons being injured, fortunately slightly.

Members of the Police and an ambulance rushed to the scene to transport the injured persons to the General Hospital of Paphos.

Link to more photos: https://www.sigmalive.com/news/local/97 ... ecnQvgUezY

Google Translate - as Dominic rightly states it was the roof and not the balcony.

It was the roof, not a balcony.

Tea for Two is very popular there could have been several fatalities with a massive platform of concrete forming part of the roof landing through their veranda, the property will require a structural survey I presume

Given that the roof has several more of those overhangs, I imagine they will need checking as a matter of urgency.

With this second building in Kato Paphos being affected by in this case a partial roof collapse, the first being an older building near Kennedy Square where the balconies collapsed yesterday, surely something should be done to inspect all the older buildinga in that area?. It's a tourist area after all.
Now its been reported that possibly tourists were injured who were there at the time. I hope that they aren't very seriously injured and will recover soon
In an earthquake prone area there seems to be an immediate need for the Govt to act to order a compusary engineering inspection of the older buildings, before more people get injured.
Dee

As one can see on this photo there are more concrete overhangs at this building (as Dominic also mentioned)...



Further, unfortunately there were four people injured, not two. One transferred to Nicosia hospital.... Google translate from PaphosPress:


One of the four persons injured today at noon after the collapse of a pergola, which collapsed due to the fall of a parapet of a building, was taken to the Nicosia General Hospital with a fractured vertebra on Poseidonos beach avenue in Kato Paphos.

A total of four injured people were taken to the hospital with fractures and abrasions in various parts of their bodies.

In particular, one person has a fractured head, the other has a fractured rib, the third has superficial injuries, while the fourth has a fractured vertebra, as a result of which it is deemed appropriate to transfer him to the Nicosia General Hospital to undergo immediate surgery due to the severity of the injury."

Max

Thanks for that update Max.. Three of my relatives were sat in the same spot only three days ago

I hope all those injured make a good recovery

I was listening to a guy being nterviewed ,I think it was the mayor, and when asked why buildings are not inspected, his reply was we do not have the power to enter buildings, it takes months and months to get a permit to enter a building for inspection, this should force the governments hand to give local authority's more power , but somehow I doubt it.

WHL wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:56 pm I was listening to a guy being nterviewed ,I think it was the mayor, and when asked why buildings are not inspected, his reply was we do not have the power to enter buildings, it takes months and months to get a permit to enter a building for inspection, this should force the governments hand to give local authority's more power , but somehow I doubt it.

The guy being interviewed was indeed our Paphos Mayor, which stated quite rightly the following:

" These incidents seem to be attributed, on the one hand, to bad practices of the past that allowed and/or showed tolerance for the use of inappropriate materials in the construction of apartment buildings, and on the other hand, to the irresponsible attitude of the owners, who, where cracks or problems are observed, do not request the involvement of specialists to remove the problems but are content to take measures that not only do not solve the problem but hide it (eg painting cracks)."

Max

It appears that the balcony below may have assisted in the injuries sustained by the people below being less severe, by trajecting the debris outwards.
Had both the overhangs collapsed, this could have been a completely different story.

But two such incidents in a short space of time should be sending out a very loud message that the construction of all of these type of properties need to be looked at urgently.

Are they by the same developer/construction company?

I doubt it. They were completely different types of buildings, in completely different parts of the city. I've been inside one of those slum dwellings in Old Town to photograph it. I did it last year, and I have to tell you they are completely horrible. How anybody has the lack of humanity to rent them out is beyond understanding. They are death traps with or without collapsing balconies. I would not be surprised if more of the balconies in Old Town collapsed. But they were far different from this.

There's no humanity involved.
Just pure greed.