The Versailles Wedding Hall Disaster, 23 People Killed, 380 Injured (2001) (Higher Quality)

I recently came across a higher quality video of the Versailles wedding hall collapse, so i hope you all enjoy.

Backstory:

At 22:43 local time on 24/5/2001, A wedding celebration turned tragic when a large portion of the 3rd floor that they were dancing on suddenly collapsed underneath.

23 people fell to their deaths through two stories, including the groom's 80 year old grandfather and his 3 year old second cousin. Another 380 were injured, to varying degrees, including the bride who was carried out of the rubble by the groom after suffering serious pelvic injuries.

The side of the building that failed was originally designed to be a two-story structure while the other side was designed to be three stories. Late into construction, it was decided that both sides of the building should be equal heights, so a third story was added to the shorter side.

But since the change was made so late in the construction process, the 2nd story was already complete, and the roof was now the floor, and the live load (people, furniture, equipment, etc.) for a floor is typically much greater then the design load for a roof.

This was mitigated by the construction of partitions on the second floor which helped redistribute the excess weight.

A few weeks before the disaster, the partitions were removed, which caused the floor to start sagging. Viewing it as a cosmetic problem, the owners attempted to level the floor using additional grout and fill, which not only failed to provide adequate structural capacity, but also introduced a significant dead load (weight of the structure by itself) to the already weakened area.

After the collapse, the engineer who invented the Pal-Kal construction method, which was used on the wedding hall, Eli Ron, was subsequently arrested and indicted for manslaughter.

Following the disaster, the Israeli Parliament passed the "Versailles law", which established a special committee responsible for treating the people injured in the disaster, and establishing an investigational committee responsible for investigating the 2001 wedding hall collapse and the 1997 Maccabiah Bridge collapse. The final report was released in December 2003.

In October 2004, the three wedding hall owners - Avraham Adi, Uri Nisim and Efraim Adiv - were convicted of causing death by negligence and causing damage by negligence. Adi and Adiv were sentenced to 30 months in prison, while Nisim was sentenced to 4 months community service.

In May 2007, Eli Ron and three engineers involved with the building's construction were sentenced by the Jerusalem District Court.

Eli Ron received a 4-year sentence, Shimon Kaufman and Dan Sheffer received 22 months, and Uri Pessah recieved 6 months, all three men were convicted in December 2006 for causing death by negligence and sabotage by negligence.

In 2016, the victims of the disaster and their families were compensated by the state a total of 120 million NIS (Roughly 32 million USD)

The wedding hall was subsequently demolished and as of 2023, the lot where it once stood is still unoccupied and sealed.

A memorial garden commemorating the 23 people who died was built across the street from the site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versailles_wedding_hall_disaster

P.S. While writing, I came across pieces of an even higher quality version, although its only pieces of the video because it was from a news segment about the 10th anniversary of the disaster. I also tried splicing the video from the segment with the audio of the above mentioned clip as well as isolating the video to just the clips from the disaster to the best of my abilities. Link to the 10th anniversary segment and edited version below.

News clip (in Hebrew):

Spliced version:

EDIT: I found a recording of Israeli news coverage about the disaster, It is about 13 mins long, but skip to 1:08 or 7:00 for the collapse. Although the quality isn't great, it still gives a bit of insight into the moments before the disaster.