Police: 5 dead in balcony collapse in California; 8 hurt, most with life-threatening injuries

BERKELEY, Calif. – An apartment building balcony collapsed early Tuesday in California, killing five people and leaving eight others injured, police said.

Many of the injured have critical, life-threatening wounds, said officer Jennifer Coats, a spokeswoman with the Berkeley Police Department.

Police received a call about the incident shortly before 1 a.m. PDT Tuesday, and when officers arrived they found that the balcony on the fourth floor of the building on Kittredge Street had disintegrated.

Coats said officers are still investigating and she doesn’t have any information on how it occurred or what the people were doing on the structure at the time.

Coats said she also didn’t have information on the identities of the victims, including their ages and gender.

“We don’t have a lot of specific detail at this point because they (investigators) are still trying to work through it all,” she said in a telephone interview.

The building has apartment in the upper floors and retails shops on the ground floor.