France: The French town of Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast will observe a day of mourning today for 15 people who fell to their deaths during a visit to the Queen Mary 2 on Saturday. The accident initially claimed 13 lives, but two others died of injuries yesterday. Lara Marlowe reports from Paris
Several of the dead were reportedly children. President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited the site of the tragedy yesterday to express condolences.
Thirty-one other people were injured, nine of them seriously, when the metal bridge leading to the world's biggest oceanliner collapsed. They fell 20 metres to the cement floor of the dry-dock.
Eye-witnesses said they heard a cracking or screeching sound as one end of the metal passageway gave way and swung down to hang vertically opposite the ship. Some visitors tried to cling to the bridge as it fell.
A nursing assistant at the Saint-Nazaire hospital told Le Parisien Dimanche how her daughter, Virginie (20), survived with a broken pelvis and three broken vertebrae. "She fell 20 metres onto cement. Her rucksack absorbed the shock ... She said it seemed like an eternity before the rescue workers arrived. She couldn't move because she was in a pile of bodies. She was screaming the whole time. Someone died next to her."
The victims were workers from the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipbuilding company or their close friends and family members.
Shipyard workers were allowed to take visitors on to the Queen Mary 2 after 6 p.m. and on weekends. Some 360,000 people have visited the ship since construction started on January 12th, 2002. There were often 600 visitors a day on weekends.
The ship completed successful test runs in September and early November.
Virtually every family in Saint-Nazaire has a member who has worked on the oceanliner.
"The Queen Mary 2 is the pride and joy of thousands of people; this is too, too terrible," said the mayor, Mr Joel Batteux.
The oceanliner was built for the British Cunard line, at a cost of €800 million. Saint-Nazaire was to have held a ball and fireworks on December 20th to celebrate the ship's completion, but the festivities may now be cancelled.
The ship is scheduled to leave Saint-Nazaire for Southampton on December 23rd, and will be launched by the Queen of England on January 8th, 2004.
All 2,017 cabins are booked for the ship's seven-day maiden voyage to New York. The vessel is the length of three football fields and the height of a 23-storey building. It boasts five swimming pools, six restaurants, 14 bars and clubs, a spa, theatre, casino and small hospital. Its cruising speed is 30 knots (54 k.p.h.).
Yet even before Saturday's tragedy, the ship was rumoured to be jinxed. The Chantiers de l'Atlantique have received no further orders for oceanliners and their parent company, Alstom, awaits a decision by the EU Commission on a multi-billion euro plan by the French government to save it from bankruptcy. Construction of the ship was slowed by three strikes since March.
Many of the 650 subcontractors on the vessel employed poor labourers from Romania, Portugal, Greece and India. The workers were often paid less than the legal minimum wage, worked excessively long hours and had the cost of their food and lodging deducted from their pay.
The French government has opened an investigation into why the metal bridge, which had been installed on Friday, collapsed.