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Workers examine a balcony that collapsed in Berkeley, Calif., on June 16, 2015. Police and fire and building officials were working to figure out why the roughly 5-by-10-foot concrete-floor balcony broke loose from the side of the stucco apartment building, situated a couple of blocks from the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.(Photo: Noah Berger, AP)
BERKELEY, Calif – Water-damaged wood beams may be responsible for the balcony collapse that killed or seriously injured several Irish exchange students at a party early Tuesday, the mayor of Berkeley said Wednesday.
Investigators believe the support beams of the concrete-floor balcony were not sealed correctly during construction, Mayor Tom Bates told the Associated Press. The building, one of two in the mixed-use apartment complex, was begun in February 2005 and completed in January 2007.
Bates said rain "more than likely" caused the beams to rot, though he added later Wednesday that he was speculating, not offering an official conclusion. The local news site Berkeleyside raised the possibility of rotted beams Tuesday.
City building inspectors also determined that a balcony directly below the one that collapsed at Unit 405 of the Library Gardens complex was structurally unsafe and ordered the property owner to remove it within 24 hours. Crews began removing the Unit 305 balcony Wednesday.
Workers began removing the balcony below the one involved in the fatal collapse June 16, 2015, at an apartment complex in Berkeley, Calif.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Jeff Chiu, AP)
Inspectors also red-tagged two other balconies at the complex and declared them off-limits pending structural assessments.
Bates said crowding onto the small balcony -- roughly 4½ feet deep by 9 feet wide -- was "obviously a bad idea," but he added he wasn't blaming the victims.
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A former member of the city design-review committee that approved the project in 2001 told the San Francisco Chronicle that the balcony "was meant just to be a place where someone could stand out for bit, get a breath of fresh air. Not for something like 13 people."
Officials are investigating whether the weight of the crowd exceeded the limits of the concrete-floor balcony, which had a metal railing on three sides.
Berkeley's building code requires an "open space" balcony to support 60 pounds per square foot, or about 2,000 pounds.
Library Gardens is owned by Granite Property Fund, a subsidiary of New York-based BlackRock, the world's largest money manager with more than $4.7 trillion in assets. Greystar has managed the property since June 2014.
The collapse about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday killed five Irish students and a Northern California woman and injured seven others attending a 21st-birthday party. They were packed onto the fourth-floor balcony of the five-story stucco building, just blocks from the University of California at Berkeley, when it gave way.
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6 dead, 7 hurt in Calif. balcony collapse
That wood beams on an eight-year building had decayed and rotted is "surprising and unexpected," Darrick Hom, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California, told the Associated Press.
The wood broke off in the hands of inspectors, added Hom, who visited the site. That indicates major deterioration of the beams, known as joists.
The Library Gardens project was developed by TransAction Companies and sold to BlackRock in 2007 after the complex was completed. The developer hired Segue Construction, located in nearby Pleasanton, Calif., as the general contractor.
Segue was sued for allegedly not properly waterproofing balconies at two residential projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, AP and other news outlets reported, citing court records. The firm, developers and other parties settled both cases last year by agreeing to pay millions of dollars.
Segue spokesman Sam Singer said the litigation, which he called common on large projects, "has no bearing on the tragedy in the Berkeley."
"They are completely different projects. They are completely different types of balconies," he said, adding that the company "has never had an incident like (the Berkeley collapse) in its history."
Most of the dead and injured, along with many other partygoers, were in the United States on J-1 visas, allowed them to work and travel in the United States temporarily. In all, about 700 Irish students are working around the San Francisco Bay area this summer, the Irish consul general said.
The dead were identified as Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, Calif., and 21-year-old Irish nationals Oliva Burke, Eimeair Walsh, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster and Lorcan Miller.
The injured remained in serious condition at hospitals in the area. Officials would not release their names, citing privacy concerns.
All of Ireland mourned the dead, prayed for the injured and consoled the victims' families as they headed to the Bay Area. Flags flew at half-staff nationwide, and the Irish Parliament suspended normal business. In Oakland, a Wednesday evening Mass was planned.
The City of Berkeley said anyone wishing to help should contact the Irish Immigration Pastoral Centre at [email protected] or 415-752-6006.
Contributing: Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY; Associated Press
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