85 years ago, the unfinished department store Na Poříčí collapsed

Prague - The disaster that occurred 85 years ago, on October 9, 1928, on Na Poříčí street in Prague, remains a cautionary example for all builders to this day. The effort to complete the construction as quickly and as cheaply as possible is generally considered the main cause of the collapse of the unfinished department store that buried at least 46 people. The tragedy is recorded in history as the largest construction disaster in modern Czech history.
    The construction of the building at the corner of Na Poříčí and Biskupská streets was carried out by the builders Tomáš Pražák and Pavel Moravec. The official cause of the disaster was the overloading of the corner pillars supporting the bay window beam. Unofficially, it was said that the true cause lay in the use of lower quality cement.
    At the time of the disaster, there were 87 workers on site, and many people were also in the street. 46 people died in the rubble and 23 were seriously injured (according to other data, there were up to 60 dead and 30 seriously injured).
    The disaster caused shock and public protests, but according to available information, the culprit was never precisely identified, although a special commission was established to investigate the disaster and the police also looked into it. Pražák and Moravec built the Centrum hotel on the same site two years later.