Ferne Hotel walkway collapse

The Ferne Hotel walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on 18 May 2009 in Arvant, New Cambria, killing at least 126 people and injuring more than 230 others during a dancing contest. It is the deadliest structural collapse in New Cambria's history.

Disaster
On 18 May 2009, approximately 2,000 people had gathered in the atrium to participate in and watch a dance contest. At 7:05pm local time (21:35 UTC), the walkways on the second, third and fourth floors were packed with visitors as they watched over the active lobby, which was also full of people. The fourth floor walkway was suspended directly over the second floor walkway, with the third floor walkway set off to the side several meters away from the other two. At 7:12pm, the fourth floor walkway collapsed onto the second floor walkway, then both crashed into the lobby below. As many as 80 people were killed in the initial collapse. The walkways' collapsing rendered the lobby's two main entrances inaccessible, leaving spectators with only a hallway leading to a single-door exit to a smoking patio as their means of escape. As the walkways collapsed, a panic ensued, and hundreds of people rushed toward the narrow corridor causing a bottleneck at the hallway's entrance. A huge crush formed at the exit to the smoking patio, since the door opened inward toward the corridor. People were being pressed up against the door, thereby unable to open it, by the weight of the crowd behind them.

People were packed in so tightly in the corridor that many died standing up of compressive asphyxia. The hallway quickly started to fill with people sweating and gasping for breath and injured by crushing, and with the bodies of the dead. One person in the corridor managed to shatter the glass in the door, allowing a trickle of those trapped inside to escape.

Inside the lobby, some had smashed windows trying to escape the building. First responders were initially overwhelmed with the number of injured and dead, and over 50 ambulances were dispatched to the scene.

Aftermath
The death toll is currently at 126, with the bodies of 110 people recovered from the hotel lobby and patio corridor, and an additional 16 having perished from injuries either en route to or after reaching the hospital. Another 26 are in critical condition at hospitals in Arvant, and 9 people are still unaccounted for. Estimates at the number of non-fatally injured people range from 160 to 400.

On the morning of 19 May, president Daniel Burns ordered that all state flags be lowered to half-staff for three days, and designated 20 May as a National Day of Mourning.