40 people injured when floor collapses at Canadian church
ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia (AP) — The floor of a church filled with about 1,000 people, mostly teens, collapsed during a concert, injuring at least 40 people, one of them seriously, officials said.
The youths were at the Central Heights Church to hear the Christian rock band Starfield on Friday night when a large area in front of the stage gave way, police said.
"The whole floor just went down, kind of like an elevator, it just went straight down," concertgoer Felicia Daase said Saturday from her home in nearby Chilliwack.
"And then I saw the beam that holds the lights and stuff, and it fell about five pews in front of me. A whole bunch of people were under it."
Local health authorities said that more than 40 people received hospital treatment for injuries that included bruises and broken bones. Police initially said three suffered serious injuries but later changed that to one — a 41-year-old woman.
Investigators were trying to determine what caused the collapse. When officers arrived at the scene, they saw a hole in the floor about 22 feet wide, said Casey Vinet of the Abbotsford police.
Daase said minutes before the collapse, the band urged the audience to stop jumping up and down.
Rob Neiman, a 42-year-old Christian bookstore worker who was at the concert, said he looked into the hole and saw more than 50 people.
"It was like a pile of wreckage, bodies laying everywhere, people running and scattering," he said.
The church's head pastor, Chris Douglas, said the main worship hall was well below its capacity of 1,300 or 1,400 people. He was not present when the accident occurred.
