Just last Thursday, June 10th, 2010, the demolition of a building in Vancouver took a turn for the worst when, twice in the same day, the “professionals” behind the demolition sent entire brick walls falling into the streets. The collapsed walls destroyed city property and narrowly missing workers, pedestrians and drivers. The whole debacle was captured from various angles by onlookers and posted on YouTube.

This video shows the first collapse, as a second-story wall falls to the sidewalk, damaging a streetlight and stunning a woman driving black Volvo while stopped at the intersection.

The same collapse, viewed from above in a taller building, shows the proximity of construction flaggers who had to scurry away to avoid getting hit with debris.

Later that day, the demolition continued on the remaining wall. (Notice the still-dangling streetlight damaged in the first incident.) This wall buckles and falls onto the sidewalk, crushing fences, two newspaper boxes and sends an entire street lamp pole crashing into the street where cars were passing only seconds before!

The second wall collapse, taken by another bystander:

At this time the demolition site has been closed pending further investigation. The building in question was Vancouver’s William Davis Centre for Acting Development, which was being demolished by a company called Global Excavation and Demolition to make way for new condominiums. They may want to consider building a school for construction demolition safety instead.

Local Vancouver news outlets have more on the story:
The Vancouver Sun
The Province
CBC News

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