..."We are experiencing a national tragedy in Poland right now," my new friend, the courageous and talented Polish journalist David M. Dastych wrote in an email this morning.
For 500 people inside an exhibition hall in the Polish city of Katowice, the very worst had happened: the roof collapsed in on them.
as Dastych reported, rescue attempts to save trapped souls were frantic and fraught with the dangers of sub-zero temperatures in one of the worst winters ever for Poland. In this frigid scene, at least 66 people were killed and another 160 injured, some of them critically.
Having to remain imprisoned in the tangle of metal and rubble while first responders had to move gingerly among them added an even more nightmarish aspect to this Polish tragedy.
Plagued by temperatures that can plunge to nighttime lows as low as minus 18 C, rescuers working on Sunday were reporting the sad news that no one had been found alive since Saturday night when the roof collapsed.
More than 100 people with a plethora of unknown injuries were still trapped inside.
"Some papers wrote that a `Winter of the Century' could be expected," Dastych wrote to CFP only last week.
Stationed in Warsaw, Dastych, who writes for the best-selling weekly, "Wprost" and files monthly columns published in the Edmonton, Canada-based Polish Panorama, worries about the extremes of this winter on his home country. Dastych's story, Promisgate will be the CFP cover story on Tuesday.
The brutal `Winter of the Century' had already claimed 123 lives in Poland,
21 freezing to death in one weekend alone before the Katowice roof collapse.
In Katowice, Polish police said the weight of snow on the building, which was the scene of an international racing pigeon exhibition, was the likely cause of the accident.
Imagine the heartrending worry for relatives, who received calls from trapped loved ones on mobile phones, moments after the collapse. Many of those trapped were reporting that dead bodies were beside them.
"andrzej Gaska, a police spokesman, said the roof fell in only an hour and a half before the event was due to end." (Scotland on Sunday, Sun. 29 Jan. 2006).
"Gaska said: `The injured are being rushed to hospital by ambulance, police car and fire brigade. Several hundred people are believed to be inside.'"
"Fire brigade spokesman Jaroslaw Wojtasik said: `Rescuers are reaching people who are trapped and alive, and unfortunately they are also reaching some who are dead."
Telltale tarpaulins covering bodies too small to be adults are a grim reminder of the lost children who accompanied parents to the international racing pigeon exhibition.
Eyewitness Franciszek Kowal, who jumped to safety from a terrace, reported a macabre scene as people tried to break windows to get out. "People were hitting the panes with chairs. One of the panes finally broke, and they started to get out by the window." (Scotland on Sunday).
Meanwhile, meteorologists warn that more snow is coming.
Is it any wonder why Poles are asking, "When will this cursed winter ever end?"
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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