Dozens die when floor of Israeli wedding hall caves in
Police said the tragedy was not a terrorist attack.
At least 350 others were reported injured in what Israeli media called the worst accident of its kind in the nation's history.
Rescuers worked feverishly into the early morning hours today to reach dozens of people trapped under huge concrete slabs and metal wreckage.
The ceremony had ended and guests were dancing when the floor gave way, crashing through floor after floor to the ground. About 650 people were inside.
"People were flying through the air, the orchestra, the loudspeakers, everything fell," said Efraim Rino, his voice choking as he told Israel television that some of the victims were his relatives.
Many of the victims were lined up on stretchers awaiting ambulances to take them to hospitals. Some appeared unconscious, and most were bleeding.
The bride and groom were among the injured. Doctors said Keren Dror was hospitalized with hip and chest injuries, while her husband, Assi, sustained just minor wounds.
By daybreak, seven hours after the building collapsed, 21 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the Versailles wedding hall in an industrial section of south Jerusalem. Rescuers said the death toll would reach at least 25.
The collapse was thought to be the worst disaster involving a civilian building in the history of a nation where high casualty tolls are usually the result of terrorism and war.
Jerusalem police commander Miki Levy said it was "absolutely not" a terrorist attack. He said the collapse was caused by a "structural failure." Eyewitnesses interviewed by Israeli radio stations did not mention an explosion.
The wedding was taking place on the top floor of a building that stood alongside several other middle-class wedding halls. Two floors below were not being used, Levy said. The first floor was a garage.
Engineer Shaul Nevo, a reserve army major taking part in the rescue, said the construction was to blame.
Speaking to Israel television, he said that several other buildings constructed the same way, using thin concrete layers, had collapsed in the past and that a professional association of engineers had warned against it.
One guest said the wedding blessings had just been completed and the dancing had begun when the floor caved in. Israeli weddings are typically conducted at large halls, where relatives and guests eat and dance after the ceremony.
Sara Pinhas, a relative of the groom, said dancers had lifted the father of the bride on a chair when suddenly he fell, "and then we felt the whole building collapse, everything fell down. We managed to climb down the side of the building," she said.
The center of the top floor collapsed suddenly, witnesses said, sending the concrete crashing through the floors below. The fall left a gaping, four-story hole with metal reinforcement cables hanging at twisted angles from the sides.
Relatives, some covered with blood, gathered in front of Jerusalem hospitals, desperately seeking updated reports on their injured loved ones. Others said they helped pull people out of the wreckage before they were taken to the hospitals themselves. Hospital doctors said there were many children among the injured, including a 3-month-old baby.