International Carrier Pigeon Fair in Poland

An International Carrier Pigeon Fair held in Chorzów near Katowice, Poland. Outside winter, temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 Celsius), heavy snowfalls. Inside a place filled with exhibitors, thousands of visitors. Birds in cages, some very expensive and rare. Music plays, entertainment, loud voices, people drinking beer in the bar.

It is the second day of the fair that lasts three days only. The bird auction finished at five, most people – almost eight thousand, visited the fair earlier this day and had already left – only a few hundred stayed behind.

Andrzej looked at his watch, 5.15 pm. He heard a strange crackling noise coming from the ceiling. Crashing sounds… All of a sudden, without warning, the roof caves in. A few visitors run for the exit, another few fall on the floor. But the whole thing takes only a few seconds and most don’t have a chance. The whole place is a field after a battle. Terror. Massacre. Dead and injured people covered by the heavy roof that just gave in. Cages with pigeons. Broken steel beams. Injured people bleeding, wailing and crying for help. The double windows are hard to break, as the survivors try to get out. Some of the exit doors are locked and others cannot be opened. There is lots of snow outside holding them in place.

The injured cry from under the rubble for help. Some use their mobiles to contact their family. The rescuers come within a short time and start the search for survivors hiding under a mix of concrete and broken metal. It is so cold, that there is a risk that people will freeze to death before being brought out in the open. The work goes on all through the night. Once all the rubble is removed the grim facts of the disaster are known – 65 dead in the mortuary and almost 150 injured taken to the local hospitals.

The Prime minister declares a three day mourning period. The prosecutors are also arriving to investigate the matter. As always people ask, who is at fault?

Some say the weather is. After all, disasters like that never happen during the summer. The heavy snowfalls on the roof turned into a compact cover of ice, weighing tons and is what brought the roof down. True, the snow was not removed, although, to start with the organizers deny it.

Some argue that on the other hand, the snow was never removed in previous years either and the roof still stayed intact. This is the biggest building catastrophe in recent years in Poland. Many have died and others were injured. Right or wrong, someone must be held responsible.

As usual the Poles are clever the day after, as the Polish saying goes. All of Poland suddenly starts clearing snow from the roofs of buildings. It is pathetic and as some onlookers comment, it will only last this winter. The very next year the disaster will be forgotten and the snow will be left in peace, as usual.

The radio informs that there has been 13 accidents like this, but since no one was injured, all of them were quickly forgotten. This one is different since people have died, but give it just a little time. The Poles are not alone in this attitude, a similar deadly accident occurred recently both in Germany and Russia. But no one in Poland took notice, although, as anyone can see now, the Poles aren’t immune to accidents like that, either.

There are laws about removing the snow from roofs, which are not enforced. Some point at the infectivity of the Polish State Building Inspection. Some suspect it chooses to look the other way in exchange for money under the table, but the authority claims it has better things to do then chase the landlords that do not clear their roofs of snow.

On the other hand, an organizer of an event involving thousands of people should be expected to take at least rudimentary precautions in this respect even without supervision.

Some say, there was not enough funds, some blame the designer of the roof, who according to rumors, faced with the grim outcome of the horrible accident tried to commit suicide in one of the hotels. Should he be made accountable for projecting a flat roof for a building situated in a part of Poland where the heavy snowfalls are a rule, rather than an exception?

Some point out that the Poles are notorious for breaking laws including building laws. And since the laws in most cases are not enforced, is it so strange if the owner of the fair hall decided to cut a few corners? As the saying goes, “a penny saved is a penny earned”. Why pay for snow removal when the roof held for so many years?

There’s a lively discussion on the subject. Very few blame the landlord. What is the point in clearing the roofs? It will cost so much money that it could be better spent elsewhere. Buy defibrillators instead, they are the best way of saving lives, demands one.

Another points out that 100 people a week die in traffic accidents in Poland, which makes that over 5000 people a year, and still no one even lifts an eyebrow. Should we not try to save the lives on the roads instead of removing snow? Remove all the drunks and kamikazes on the Polish roads that kill innocent people that the police have no funds to pursue?

A depressing aspect of the disaster involves the “hyenas” stealing the belongings of the victims of the disaster: money, valuables, even pigeons, some of great value. I wonder what kind of world we live in…

What is depressing about the whole matter is that it soon will be forgotten and everything will return to normal. The respect for human life is unfortunately almost always also a financial issue and Poland is a country where money often is scarce. How much, after all, is a human life worth?

PolReport

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