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Roof cave-in death toll in Poland at 66

KATOWICE, Poland - Tadeusz Dlugosz and his son were at separate exhibits at a racing pigeon fair Saturday when there was a loud crack and the roof tumbled down, killing at least 66 people and injuring 160.

Dlugosz climbed out from among the twisted steel beams and corrugated metal sheets, but his 26-year-old son was among those killed.

"It was his idea to come to the fair, it was his decision, and he found his grave there," Dlugosz said Sunday as he waited to find out which morgue his son's body was in.

The two had traveled 150 miles to attend the show devoted to pigeon racing, a sport popular in Europe in which homing pigeons are released and race home using their sharp sense of direction. The Pigeon 2006 fair had more than 120 exhibitors, including groups from Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine and Poland, according to the fair's Web site.

The last person rescued alive from the building was pulled out Saturday night, as extreme cold set in overnight.

A day after the roof caved in, authorities turned their attention to demolishing the rest of the structure, built in 2000.

"The rescue operation is over," said Krzysztof Mejer, a spokesman for the government of the Silesia region. Rescue dogs indicated that there were no more bodies in the debris, he said.

"We don't expect anyone else to be found under the wreckage," he said.

Fire chief Kazimierz Krzowski said heavy machinery was now being called in to tear down the rest of the building.

"The parts of the structure that are not lying on the ground are a threat," he said.

Transport Minister Jerzy Polacek told TVN24 television that the roof was covered with more than 18 inches of icy snow, which police blamed for the collapse.

However, the president of the Katowice company that organized the fair, Bruce Robinson, said that "the reasons are not clear" and that the firm was working with authorities to help determine them.

Grzegorz Slyszyk, a lawyer for the building's owners, said snow had been cleared regularly from the roof.

People who escaped have said two emergency exits were open, but other exits were locked, and that they saw people struggling to break windows to escape.

President Lech Kaczynski declared a national period of mourning until Wednesday.

Visiting the scene, he called it "the greatest tragedy" to hit postcommunist Poland.

[Last modified January 30, 2006, 00:33:11]