Paris terminal “may have to be demolished”

Airport officials in Paris have warned that they would not hesitate to completely demolish terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle after part of it collapsed at the weekend.

As reported by News From Abroad yesterday, five people were killed when part of the airport’s futuristic terminal collapsed on Sunday morning – just 11 months after the building was completed.

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph reports, staff and rescue workers were “sent scrambling” when they heard “loud creaks” in a part of the building that is still standing. Airport staff are still being kept away from the building in case of further collapses.

The newspaper quotes its French counterpart Le Monde as saying that the disaster was “an earthquake for France’s image and a catastrophe for the Paris Airports Authority and Air France”, adding: “The show of aesthetics and power put on by this building has changed course dramatically to become an admission of weakness.”

Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad