Real-life Jenga: Building collapses when engineer removes wrong brick

Engineers were attempting to save the crumbling blue plaque building from demolition.

But when one of them took out the ‘wrong brick’, the whole house collapsed to the ground like the dramatic finale in a life-sized game of Jenga.

The two-storey building in Ashton-under-Lyne’s Stamford Street Central was once the home of local poet Francis Thompson, whose best-known work was The Hound of Heaven, published in 1893.

Real-life Jenga: Building collapses when engineer removes wrong brick — The building in Stamford Street Central in Ashton-under-Lyne collapsed like a Jenga game (Picture: Vanessa Dixon/YouTube)

No one was hurt in the drama that took place around noon yesterday, according to theManchester Evening News. The action was caught on video by witness Vanessa Dixon.

The area around the privately owned building had already been cordoned off by police, who were called out at 7.30am following reports of falling debris.

Structural engineers from the Tameside council arrived to assess the situation, but when one of them prodded some beams while standing in a cherry-picker, the whole building collapsed.

Video grabs from "Building Collapse, Stamford Street, Ashton under Lyne" shot by Vanessa Dixon — When the structural engineer removed ‘the wrong brick’, the whole building crumbled (Picture: Vanessa Dixon/YouTube)

An eyewitness told MEN: ‘He was up there trying to make it safe and he obviously took out the wrong brick. The whole lot came down with a loud rumble.’

The building has been boarded-up and unoccupied for considerable time, according to the local authority.

A spokesman said the road would remain closed for the foreseeable future.