Dozens Injured in ‘Very Scary’ London Theater Collapse
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LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images(LONDON) — A theatergoer at London’s Apollo Theatre said that people began screaming in the middle of a performance as the ceiling began collapsing onto viewers Thursday.
“We just saw things falling in front of us, big things, falling,” Alexey Moskvin told ABC News. “People were screaming. I’m pretty shaken.”
“It was very scary. There was so much stuff coming from the ceiling,” he said.
The cave-in happened around 8:15 p.m. in London, or 3:15 p.m. ET. Audience members had packed into the theater to see a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.
The theater is located in the heart of London’s “Theatreland” district, in the West End. It has 775 seats on four different levels and is one of London’s oldest theaters.
More than 70 people were injured in Thursday night’s incident, seven seriously.
“It was just a half-an-hour into the performance — it’s a great performance and initially when people started screaming my first thought was that it was part of the performance — how wrong I was,” Moskvin told ABC.
“It looked very serious from where we sat,” he said. “Outside, a couple of people being taken away — a few scratches.”
Witnesses told the BBC that “within an instant, the entire roof caved in” on theatergoers.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio