700+ people plunge through 4th floor at Israeli wedding celebration

2001: "Assi and Keren Sror were celebrating their wedding with over 700 guests. Little could they imagine what was about to occur. The guests were dancing to a very popular, bouncy Mizrahi tune. They could be heard singing in unison the refrain of a well-known Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jewish) song, which goes, "I have no money, I have no future." And then, they were gone! For many those would be their last words.

Suddenly, seemingly in unison, they plunged, disappearing into a dark pit of death that filled with dust and screams. There simply was no warning, no time for the vanishing faces to grasp that they were being swallowed. An amateur photographer who captured the scene on video said the people on the dance floor had sunk two feet before he realized what was happening. Then they disappeared and the screams began."

700+ people collapse through 4th floor at Israeli wedding

This is no joke. When I was a senior in college we had a party spot called The Pit. It was a set of two large apartments - one above another. When we trashed one too much we would move upstairs and then party in that one until we had time to clean the one below. We had to keep things bouncing - once at the peril of our many co-ed guests.

One night a few of us who ran our frat party place left the booze and babes upstairs to chill for a minute and get blazed in the lower, freshly trashed party apartment. We could hear our DJ playing that old "Jump, Jump" song by Onyx and apparently it was a hit with the crowd. Why do I say it was a hit? Because all of a sudden I looked said "Holy crap the cieling is bowing down!"

I swear on my life that cieling was bending down at least 1.5ft every other second under the weight of all my fellow students jumping in unison to that damn song. My man Roy was like,"Johnson, your high" and I said "You're the one who drops acid all the time bro I'm not hallucinating that shit is about to cave in!" and I ran like hell upstairs and told the DJ to shut it off NOW. I remember people were sweating like hell and pissed that I harshed the song. I didn't care if they got their groove interrupted I wasn't about to have people get injured or killed falling thru a floor! We were already abusing the hell out of that building why tempt fate and blow up The Pit? No more Onyx and that was a standing order. That song was played out years ago anyway.

True story.

Search for wedding hall survivors ends; owners, contractors arrested
May 26, 2001 Posted: 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT)


JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Rescuers called off the search for survivors of a catastrophic building collapse as Israeli authorities arrested the building's owners and builders.

Israeli police said at least 23 people were killed and another 250 were injured in Thursday night's collapse of a crowded wedding reception hall. Rescuers called off the search for survivors Saturday afternoon.

Police have questioned 10 people involved in the building's construction and recent renovation, including the four-story structure's contractors and engineers. They were under arrest, but no formal charges had been filed Saturday afternoon.

Authorities said it was possible a crucial support wall may have been removed in the renovation about three months ago.

Among those arrested was the inventor of a lightweight flooring system widely used in Israel in the 1980s but banned by the government in 1996.

Authorities said it was not clear whether that type of flooring, which has caused structural problems in other buildings, was to blame for Thursday's collapse.

All those who attended the wedding had been accounted for, they said, but it was possible that workers in the building that night could be among those underneath the debris.

Police said it was unclear how many others were still missing, but the smell of decomposing remains at the scene suggested bodies remained buried in the wreckage.

Rescue workers could use heavy equipment only with caution, as unstable concrete slabs still dangled above their heads.

Amateur video from the wedding captured the eerie scene as scores of dancing guests suddenly dropped through the floor. Panicked guests screamed in horror as they peered into the four-story-deep pit that remained.

The bride and groom, Assi and Keren Sror, were both injured. Assi Sror was treated and released after the disaster, but Keren suffered hip and chest injuries which may require surgery, doctors said.

The mother of the groom was among those who plunged through the floor; she was recovering at a hospital.

"It broke three floors down -- one, two ... and three. I feel very, very bad. It was about half an hour until they (the rescuers) come to save us," Aliza Sror said from her hospital bed.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert said forensic investigators had found nothing inside the building to suggest the collapse was the result of a bomb or terrorist act.


SOURCE (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/05/26/wedding.hall.02/index.html)

That's horrible! I really don't remember hearing about this when it happened, but that's really painful to watch. Scary to think that it might be caused by "a lightweight flooring system widely used in Israel in the 1980s but banned by the government in 1996." This could happen any day, all over that area. Really scary.

And njohnson, very nice grouping together of posts.

Awful, just awful. The floor probably never had that much weight on it since it was built. Damn, and to think it will probably happen again.

well....nothing to do with weight. more like ppl trying to oscillate the building to its resonating frequency.