Part of the roof of De Grolsch Veste, the home stadium of Enschede football club FC Twente, collapsed around noon on Thursday.

At least one person was killed and 14 were injured. Ten people have been hospitalised, two of them are in a critical condition. The victims were construction workers who were renovating the stadium to increase the capacity to 30,000 visitors. Dogs and cameras are being used to search the wreckage. 

The part of the stadium which collapsed was a new extension which was still under construction. Eyewitnesses say a crane struck two girders and brought down the roof. Workers ran for their lives as the roof buckled and collapsed.

A worker watching the drama from a nearby office building said “there was a huge amount of noise and it went down like a house of cards.”

A message expressing sympathy with all those involved in the disaster has been posted on the football club's website.

(gsh/ae/imm)

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