BREAKING NEWS: HMS BELFAST GANGWAY COLLAPSES

[Phil English]

Within the last hour the pedestrian walkway leading from the Thames riverside to HMS Belfast has collapsed.

I can see from my office lots of activity with PLA, police and fire launches and the multi-cat JESSICA S presumably taking stranded tourists from the vessel to shore. No reports of any serious injuries though 2 people understood to be slightly hurt

Photos and info here: http://londonist.com/2011/11/hmsbelfastcollapse.php

Brgds
Phil

[John Jones]

I know that they've been working on it for several months. Somebody's head needs to roll for that one, if it had been a busy Saturday dozens of tourists could have been on that gangway and ended up in the drink.
Clearly a fundamental error had been made somewhere.
Luckily nobody appears to have been seriously hurt.
Best Regards
John J.

[Dave Forbes]

Seeing the pictures now , yes , Belfast could have had fatalities to deal with. I though the gangway would have been more solidly built instead of what looks like tarpauline covered scaffold framing. The London Port Authroity , the Marine Accident Authority and probably the MCA will all want to have a good look at it in situ before anything is moved. Presumably the HMS Belfast will be closed to the public for the time being.

[Phil English]

The scaffolding and tarpaulin that you see are only there because of renovation work being done to the structure. It is normally a solid covered walkway.

Brgds
Phil