On the 23rd of June, 2012, in the city of Elliot Lake in Ontario, Canada, a segment of the rooftop
parking deck at the Algo Center Mall collapsed, smashing down through two floors of the shopping
center. The incident, which claimed the lives of two people and injured 22 more, lasted just a few
short moments, but was the result of a slow, quiet, corrosive process that had been going
on for decades. The Algo Center Mall was opened in August 1980. As the largest commercial complex
in the area the mall acted as a community center and regularly hosted events such as car shows,
fundraisers for charities, antique appraisals and local markets. The mall was a sizable 18,000
square meters (or a 190,000 square feet) and on top of a plethora of stores and services
also contained the 80-room Algo Inn (the largest hotel and retirement residence in the area),
a library, constituency offices, public health offices and a grocery store. The building also
happened to have rooftop parking. Despite how important the mall was to the community
the building was plagued with issues from the beginning. From the 1990s, leaks were a pretty
regular occurrence. It was commonplace to see the floors of the mall littered with buckets
while the ceilings were covered in a patchwork of visible repairs. In 2008 the Bank of Nova Scotia
branch in the mall had to close down for a week to repair the damage caused by multiple leaks.
While obviously inconvenient, these leaks were only a prelude to the much greater disaster still
to come. At approximately 2:20pm on the 23rd of June, 2012, a large section of
the Algo Center Mall's rooftop - which also doubled as its parking deck - collapsed,
bringing thousands of pounds of concrete and metal crashing down onto the floors below. Shoppers and
staff, caught entirely unawares, fled as best they could, evacuating even the unaffected areas
of the mall as the whole building was now (quite reasonably) believed to be structurally unstable.
22 people who escaped the mall did so with injuries requiring treatment. Two further people
inside the building at the time of the collapse, however, were not so lucky. 37-year-old Lucie
Aylwin and 74-year-old Doloris Perizzolo were trapped in the rubble at the site of the collapse.
Aylwin had been working at a lottery kiosk at the mall, and Perizzolo had been her customer.
Now the two were trapped together under the dangerously unstable wreckage.
A search and rescue team was on site within hours of the collapse, but faced an incredibly
complicated task. The building was at risk of further structural failure - a situation only
worsened by persistent rainfall that day. Despite these conditions rescuers worked their way through
the debris until they were close enough to the two trapped women to hear signs of life. Before they
could effect a rescue, though, a damaged escalator began to fall and they were forced to retreat.
By the early hours of the 25th of June the two women had been trapped for more than a day.
Their family and friends had traveled to the site to keep a vigil,
and rescuers rallied and brought in more equipment to try and save them.
A robotic arm was delivered to the site - something which took another full day - and
was used to safely clear the debris trapping the women. By this time, however, it was too late.
Both had passed away. Although there were signs that Lucie Aylwin might have survived for quite
some time and might have been saved had the rescue operation been just a little bit swifter.
An investigation revealed that the decision to make the roof of the mall
into a parking area had played a huge role in the incident.
Each day during the winter of many successive years cars had been moving from the streets of
Elliot Lake onto the roof of the mall, bringing with them salt and road grit. This salt had sunk
into the structure of the building, corroding the metal supports which held the roof in place.
To prevent this from happening a waterproof membrane should have been installed to protect
the supports from corrosion. No such membrane was actually legally required by the building
codes of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and so nobody was overly concerned when plans to fit one
fell through. Instead a contractor simply patched up existing damage with sealant,
a step which did nothing to fix the underlying problem of seeping saltwater corroding supports.
Poorly maintained rooftop parking may not have been the only structural issue faced by the mall.
Structural engineer John Kadlec, who was involved in the building of the Algo Center Mall, claimed
the project was marred by shoddy workmanship from the beginning, with missing bolts, crooked
columns, and rusted steel beams all being noted as problems faced during construction. Kadlec
was also confused by what he called the "unique decision" to put the parking lot on the roof.
Despite his reservations, however, Kadlec signed off on the project, stating that at
the time he believed the deficiencies had been rectified. This was, ultimately, not the case.
The aftermath of the Algo Center Mall collapse was extensive and multifaceted. Unsurprisingly a
class-action lawsuit was filed against the mall's current and former owners, and construction and
engineering professionals involved in the building of the structure - a lawsuit which, as of May
2020, was still ongoing. An engineer named Robert G H Wood, who signed off on a report declaring the
mall as structurally sound mere weeks before the collapse, was indicted on two counts of criminal
negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Ultimately the
judge decided that there wasn't enough evidence to find Wood guilty, although he did say that
Wood should accept "moral responsibility" for the incident, stating that his work was
shoddy, sloppy, and even inadequate... even if it didn't reach the levels of being criminal.
The rest of the mall was demolished following the partial roof collapse.
The closure of the mall struck a huge blow to the local economy.
The mall had been a central part of the Elliot Lake economy, employing hundreds of locals and
housing numerous community services such as public health offices and the library.
Ongoing structural problems notwithstanding, for many in the Elliott Lake community the mall had
been their main social outlet, and its loss was keenly felt. Many people and businesses
left Elliot Lake following the collapse. A new mall named Pearson Plaza was opened in 2016,
representing for many a potential fresh start for the community. Nowadays, however, Elliot Lake is
perhaps most well known as a popular retirement community. In addition to the local impacts,
the disaster drew attention to the government's plans to cut federal funding for emergency
services - including the search and rescue team involved in the agonizingly slow rescue attempts.
In 2012 their budget had already been cut by one million dollars as compared to the previous year.
Thankfully the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall helped to turn the tide on this trend. Following
the report made by the Elliott Lake Inquiry the Ontario government allotted an additional $2.5
million into emergency response measures. this provided funding for specialized rescue situations
such as building collapses and chemical attacks and contaminations. While these incidents are
incredibly rare, they do still happen... and the equipment and resources that rescue personnel have
on hand when they do can become not just a budget item, but life or death for innocent people.
This video was made in collaboration with Brick Immortar.
Brick is something of an expert when it comes to malls. On his channel he explores dead malls
and tells the stories behind them, and also covers a few civil engineering failures here and there.
He's put together his own take on this disaster and we've launched our videos simultaneously.
I touch on how important the mall was to the community in this video,
but with his insight Brick really gives you a feel for what the mall was like,
and puts it in context in a way that I never could. Every disaster is a complicated story
and this one is no exception. If you want to go deeper on this particular story,
go watch his video where you can learn more about the delay in the rescue operation, the impact on
the local community, and how malls in Canada might be a little different from malls in your country.