Collapsed Belfast block to be demolished. March 11 2008

The Belfast office block in which six construction workers where injured when it partially collapsed while under construction yesterday is to be demolished.

The Health & Safety Executive said it would be looking in detail at how building company Turkington Construction planned a rebuild so that such an incident could not happen again.

The site of the new Law Society offices in Victoria Street was sealed to workers as inspectors from the HSE continued their investigation into the cause of the collapse as concrete was being poured on the second floor.

Ken Logan, one of the inspectors, said: "There will be a detailed investigation carried out as to why this happened."

He said the Executive was seeking to stabilise the perimeter of the site to ensure no further injuries could occur.

He added: "We will be working with the company to develop safe method systems about how the demolition is going to take place to clear the site for the reconstruction.

"At that stage we will be looking in detail at how they are going to go forward so that this type of activity cannot recur on site.

The six injured workers, including two from Poland, remain in stable conditions in hospital suffering from a range of injuries including fractures.