Ontario’s emergency response protocols under review following Elliot Lake disaster

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Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Thursday, June 28, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ADAM RADWANSKI AND ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

With two bodies pulled from the wreckage of Elliot Lake’s Algo Mall, Dalton McGuinty’s government is set to begin a grim review of whether Ontario’s own emergency-response processes undermined the ultimately fruitless rescue mission.

A source in the Premier’s Office confirmed on Wednesday that the review will consider whether the specialized excavator used to dismantle the collapsed mall – four days after the crisis began – should have been brought in sooner.

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Premier faces questions over stop-and-start rescue at Elliot Lake

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Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Wednesday, June 27, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ADAM RADWANSKI, ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY, STEPHEN SPENCER DAVIS and JANE SWITZER

TORONTO and ELLIOT LAKE, ONT. — Ontario’s Premier acknowledges that confusion and delays in the effort to reach possible survivors of a shopping mall roof collapse have raised concerns about the province’s capacity to respond to serious emergencies.

“There will be a time for questions that need to be asked about what and when and how and why not,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday, after being asked how a race to reach potential survivors could be halted and then resumed only after his intervention.

As heavy equipment began rumbling up the highway to the Algo Mall in Elliot Lake to undertake the task of prying apart heavy concrete slabs inside an unstable structure, questions also grew as to whether clearer lines of communication and stronger leadership on the ground could have saved precious time.

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After Elliot Lake mall collapse, heartbreak and hope

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Chris Young/Canadian Press

Tuesday, June 26, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND STEPHEN SPENCER DAVIS

TORONTO and SUDBURY — Rescuers will try “drastic” measures to reach possible survivors in a collapsed mall, acting at the urging of the community and Ontario’s Premier after search-and-rescue operations were suspended over safety fears.

Crews who just hours earlier were pulled from the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ont. will have another go at the structure relying on machinery, said fire chief Paul Officer.

Officials believe there is one person dead and possibly at least one still alive in the wreckage. Reaching them could require methods that are “a little more drastic, that aren’t necessarily done in a rescue operation – or even a recovery operation,” Chief Officer told a news conference Monday evening. “And we still have to come up with that plan.”

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Elliot Lake rescue mission halted as collapsed mall deemed unsafe

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Chris Young/Canadian Press

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY, CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND STEPHEN SPENCER DAVIS
Monday, June 25, 2012 – Globe and Mail

Rescue crews have been called off the scene of a fatal mall collapse in Elliot Lake, Ontario: The structure is simply too dangerous to send people into.

Ontario Provincial Police and crews from Toronto’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue spent hours making their way through the rubble of the mall, which collapsed Saturday afternoon, killing at least one person and injuring more than 20.

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Radiohead’s touring company under scrutiny following fatal stage collapse

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Radiohead’s touring company is among four companies under scrutiny by Ontario’s Labour Ministry after a fatal collapse at Toronto’s Downsview Park crushed one man to death and injured three others.

The ministry has requested documents from four companies involved with the fatal stage collapse in an attempt to figure out exactly who’s responsible for the fallen structure.

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Radiohead ‘shattered’ after drum tech’s death in Toronto stage collapse

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June 18, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

A stage built to accommodate rock superstardom before a crowd of 30,000 takes a small army and several days to construct from the ground up. Dozens if not hundreds of crew members measure the exact location, lay concrete blocks as ballast and build up the raised floor, supports and a roof before trained riggers clamber up latticed scaffolding to suspend loudspeakers, lights and visual displays.

The stage set up for Radiohead’s Saturday show would have been right on schedule by late afternoon. The structure otherwise ready to go, the technical crew travelling with the band was doing final audio and lighting adjustments in preparation for a sound check.

It took seconds for the entire stage to crumple in on itself; white canopy laden with screens and lights tipping forward onto the stage, bringing scaffolding down with it.

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One dead as Toronto stage collapses before Radiohead concert

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Alexandra Mihan/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Saturday, June 16, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND MATTHEW BRAGA

There was a popping crack, like the sound of fireworks, then an eerie silence as Erin Peacock watched the towering stage crumple in on itself, hardware-laden canopy tipping over towards the front end of the stage, taking reams of scaffolding down with it and leaving long sticks of twisted metal behind.

The stage collapse at Downsview Park hours before what was supposed to be a Radiohead concert crushed one man to death and injured three more. A 45-year-old man was still in hospital Saturday evening with non-life-threatening injuries. Two other men were treated for minor injuries on the scene and released. All of the victims were crew members setting up the stage, police said.

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Canadian researchers thwart Ebola virus

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Christopher Black/The Canadian Press

Thursday, June 14, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

A team of Canadian researchers has developed one of the most effective cures yet for the Ebola virus. That’s big news both for treating the deadliest virus on Earth and tackling myriad other similarly aggressive diseases.

The treatment, in which injections of protein-grabbing antibodies stop a virus from replicating, has the longest treatment window so far resulting in full recovery – a full day. There’s just one catch: It can take up to two weeks for symptoms of the disease to appear.

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Toronto’s gangs smaller, looser – but packing more heat

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Saturday, June 9, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Toronto’s organized crime is anything but.

The city’s gangs are smaller, their members more loosely organized than they were 20 years ago.

They’re also more lethal: The number of homicides classified as “gang-related” has risen since the 1990s. Last Saturday’s shooting at the Eaton Centre – while officially not gang-related in Toronto police lexicon – thrust into the limelight the sort of violence normally hidden in the city’s most blighted neighbourhoods.

The changes are driven by a combination of successful police crackdowns and deeper despair in the city’s poorest, increasingly isolated areas.

Interactive: Homicides, social housing and street crime in Toronto neighbourhoods

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