COLLAPSE OF A HOTEL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8307, 10 December 1906, Page 5

COLLAPSE OF A HOTEL.

NINE MEN KILLED. I (Per Sierra at Auckland). ! LONG BEAOH, Nov. 9. Witb no warning save the oriee of workmen who first felt the floors sag beneath their feet,'five stones of the central wing of the new 750,000 dollar Bixby Hotel collapsed at 9.35 o'olook this morning, oarrying nine men to death in tons of tanaled wreokage. About 150 artisans and labourers were scattered through the structure at the moment it fell, and of these nearly a hundred were carried down in the ruins. The Hotel Bixby, wnioh has been under construction for several months, was to have been one of the best appointed hotels on the Southern Coast. The total cost of the building >was estimated at 750,000 dollar*. Plana oalled for 276 guest chambers, and the building covered a ground space of 176 feet by 348 feet. Four Btories of the structure, whtch was of re-enforced cnnorete, had reached completion. It was being built on the beach, faoing the ooean, and about 200 feet from the shore. Engineers agree from indications that the labourers removed the supports of the concrete on the top floor of the structure before It was set. This dead weight collapsed, and in falling crushed other sup ports lower down, causing the whole structure to fall.