A 15 meter long part of a brick wall, which stood at the former site of Carlton and United Brewery in Swanston Street, Melbourne, Australia, collapsed due to heavy winds Thursday, March 28, killing two and seriously injuring one person.
The wall collapsed on the three unfortunate pedestrians at around 3:00 pm in the afternoon. People nearby heard a loud crash and rushed to the site to see the wall crumbled. They immediately rushed to help the three people stuck under the debris, reports The Australian.
A 19-year-old Melbourne University student, Alexander Jones, died shielding his sister, 18-year-old Bridget Jones. Bridget is seriously injured and is fighting for her life at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. The other victim killed in the collapse is a yet to be identified 30-year-old woman.
The police are investigating the cause of the collapse, even though the strong winds are being blamed for the tragic incident. Apparently, wind was blowing at 115 km/h in the city when the wall collapsed.
Police are encouraging other possible victims and witnesses to contact them. They believe that many other people might have been injured but fled the scene of the accident in fear.
Melbourne's state government will hold a meeting with the city's council and building commission to ensure safer building conditions to avoid such incidents from happening again. Stricter building codes will be sanctioned following the meeting, reports World News Australia.
"If there's one thing you to do from just this awful tragedy is see if buildings around the city that are now getting older and sometimes part of those buildings do fall off. There is no power at the moment to require the owner to do a regular check of the integrity of the facade of their building," Robert Doyle, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, said in a statement.
