Berkeley Balcony Collapse
Residents here said that apartments were often crammed with students trying to hold down living costs, and that people typically went out to the balcony to smoke.
Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh, all 21-year-olds from Ireland and Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, were killed Tuesday when the balcony they were standing on snapped off the fifth floor of a Berkeley apartment building during a birthday party. Thirteen people were tossed 50 feet to the street below. The other seven remain hospitalized.