Berkeley balcony collapse
 

Thoughts and prayers go to the families and friends of the dead. A black day for Ireland and a horrible tragedy. It will be enlightening to see if the balcony collapsed due to shoddy workmanship, if there were too many people on it, or what the reason was, but no matter what, a tragic loss of life and a terrible and unexpected end to some very bright young lives. :(

The average weight limit for a standard balcony is 100 lbs per square foot. That balcony looks to be 8'x4' which would hold 3200 lbs. 16 people at 150 lbs each is 2400 lbs, which is quite conservative. I'd venture to say this was a situation where the weight limit was very close to being exceeded, with an added factor being that the weight load wasn't static, in that there were fluctuations due to movement (i.e. dancing, etc.). They'll be doing some stress tests/core samples to determine if the concrete used met code, or if the contractor which did the work cheated.

Very sad though. Poor kids were just trying to have a good time.

Now it's emerging that the wood (****ing wood???) that held up the balcony was rotten and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. Someone had better pay for this. Up to now there's been I think a sort of unvoiced opinion that, while it's horrible it happened and nobody blames them, the kids contributed to their own deaths by overloading the balcony. Now it seems it may just have been some landlord or contractor trying to save a few bucks, and to hell with human life. ****er. I hope he or she or they are charged with negligent homicide and jailed.

Untreated wood vs. treated wood on a large scale would save a contractor a lot of money.

Even if they do try to go after whoever I suspect some argument will be used like "even if the wood was faulty if the kids hadn't surpassed the weight limit it would have be fine according to our physics calculations". Therefore, kids fault you lose.

Well if the wood was just rotten, but not originally unsound, then it could just be run-of-the-mill negligence. They'd be accountable regardless, but it may not be fair to consider them guilty of negligent homicide. Sometimes, repairs just aren't a more obvious priority when day-to-day expenses are more readily apparent.