Man hit by falling masonry in Edinburgh city centre

A MAN was being treated in hospital last night after being hit by masonry falling from a city centre building.

The potentially fatal incident in Tollcross, Edinburgh, resulted in a street being closed off and rush-hour traffic diverted from the city's Lothian Road.

A spokeswoman from Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade said the masonry and "cement skim" had fallen from a building's chimney stack in Home Street at about 4pm, striking a passerby.

Firefighters used a turntable ladder to remove loose rendering from the chimney's brickwork.

An ambulance was called to take the injured man to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. No details of his condition were available last night.

The incident is the latest in a series of masonry falls from the city's buildings in recent years.

In 2000, 26-year-old Australian waitress Christine Foster was killed by falling masonry as she worked in Ryan's Bar in the West End. Ms Foster, a civil engineer who lived in a shared flat in Edinburgh, was at the beginning of a working holiday when the accident happened. That sparked a city-wide investigation into the state of properties.

In May 2006, figures revealed that pieces of masonry were falling from city's buildings at the rate of one every two days. In 2008 an investigation was launched after a chunk of sandstone fell from the King's Theatre, narrowly missing an elderly pedestrian.

In 2007, residents in Canonmills escaped injury after tonnes of sandstone crashed to the ground outside their flats during a gale.

A few months later, a large chunk of masonry fell from a tower at the Church of Scotland's General Assembly Hall, only hours before Prince Andrew, First Minister Alex Salmond and Lord Provost George Grubb passed by.