Five Irish students have been killed and eight others injured after a balcony collapsed at an apartment building in Berkeley, California.
Officer Jennifer Coats, of the Berkeley Police Department, said many of the injured have critical, life-threatening injuries.
She said officers were alerted shortly after 1am and found the balcony on the fourth floor of an apartment building on Kittredge Street had collapsed.
The area around the building has been cordoned off, and police are working with fire officials and building inspectors to determine what caused the accident.
Officer Coats said: "We don't have a lot of specific detail at this point because they (investigators) are still trying to work through it all."
She added that it was unclear what the people were doing on the structure at the time of the collapse.
Irish broadcaster RTE reports there was a 21st birthday party taking place in the apartment and the balcony is thought to have collapsed on to one below it before falling to the ground.
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan has told the broadcaster's radio station that all five of the dead are Irish.
He said in a statement: "It is with great sadness that I confirm that a number of young Irish citizens have lost their lives while a number of others have been seriously injured following the collapse of a balcony in Berkeley, California, earlier today.
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