American athletes harm in Korea balcony collapse

SEOUL, South Korea — An inside balcony at a nightclub in South Korea collapsed on Saturday, killing two individuals and injuring 16, together with People and different athletes competing on the world swimming championships, officers mentioned.

A whole bunch had been on the nightclub within the southern South Korean metropolis of Gwangju when the collapse occurred subsequent to the athletes’ village.

Two South Korean males died and 16 others had been injured, police mentioned. In response to a police account, the injured embody 10 foreigners, eight of them athletes who had been in Gwangju to take part within the swimming championships.

Among the many athletes had been three People, two New Zealanders, one Dutch, one Italian and one Brazilian, a police officer mentioned, requesting anonymity forward of an official announcement. He mentioned most had minor accidents however that an American feminine water polo participant required surgical procedure. The opposite two People — a person and a lady — are additionally water polo gamers, the police officer mentioned.

Police mentioned they detained one of many nightclub’s co-owners and summoned three different membership officers to research whether or not the collapsed balcony was an unauthorized construction.

“That is an terrible tragedy,” mentioned Christopher Ramsey, CEO of USA Water Polo. “Gamers from our males’s and girls’s groups had been celebrating the ladies’s world championship victory when the collapse occurred at a public membership. Our hearts exit to the victims of the crash and their households.”

Ramsey mentioned earlier than police and company officers spoke to The Related Press that each one U.S. water polo athletes had been secure and accounted for.

Among the many People, Kaleigh Gilchrist suffered a deep left leg laceration and underwent surgical procedure at a hospital in Gwangju, mentioned Greg Mescall, director of communications for USA Water Polo. He mentioned that Paige Hauschild suffered lacerations on her proper arm and Johnny Hooper on his left hand that required stitches.

A fourth U.S. water polo participant, Ben Hallock, suffered minor scrapes on his legs, he mentioned.

American athletes and others competing on the world swimming championships had been amongst these injured within the collapse of a balcony at a South Korean nightclub. YONHAP/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The anti-disaster company mentioned the injured additionally included two Uzbekistan alternate college students. Not one of the injured is in life-threatening situation.

Members of the New Zealand males’s and girls’s water polo groups had been additionally on the nightclub. The lads’s captain, Matt Small, described a chaotic scene and mentioned that his crew tried to assist the injured.

“[It was] enterprise as typical after which it actually collapsed beneath our ft,” Small mentioned, chatting with New Zealand Radio Sport by telephone. “Not one of the boys are harm or injured although — in order that’s good. However everybody’s a bit shaken up for the time being.

“We did what we may however we could not actually do an excessive amount of. A few of them had been fairly dire instances. We had been extra so simply involved about everybody else, we had been attempting to do a quantity depend and ensure all of the boys had been there.”

The native organizing committee for the world swimming championships mentioned eight of the athletes attending the occasion had been injured, most barely.

A committee assertion mentioned seven of them had already returned to the athletes’ village after minor remedies at hospitals. It mentioned one participant had a leg lacerated and was to obtain stitches at a hospital.

The organizing committee mentioned it might not disclose different private details about the athletes on the request of their nationwide groups.

The Worldwide Swimming Federation mentioned the governing physique was monitoring the state of affairs.

“[FINA] will activate all measures to make sure well being care and help is supplied each time obligatory,” the federation mentioned in an announcement. “FINA deeply regrets the state of affairs and sends its finest needs to any victims of this accident.”

The Related Press contributed to this report.