UFO Info Week-End

Construction of the £4m bridge scheduled to be opened this autumn has been delayed by the unusually high river

Construction of the £4m bridge, scheduled to be opened this autumn, has been delayed by the unusually high river. But suggestions of an embarrassment similar to that on the Thames are dismissed. Paul Cheshmore, the project manager, said yesterday: “There is no comparison with London. It is designed to withstand flooding of epic proportions.”The foundation stone of the Gateshead bridge will be laid this week, and it is expected to be finished by summer 2001.. It evoked images of the cattle trucks in which so many Jews died while being transported to concentration camps during the Second World War. Sixty people, 56 men and four women, crammed into the back of a lorry, clawing at the walls, fighting for air.

And when the doors were finally opened at Dover’s Eastern Docks in the darkness of yesterday morning, all but two were dead. It evoked images of the cattle trucks in which so many Jews died while being transported to concentration camps during the Second World War. Sixty people, 56 men and four women, crammed into the back of a lorry, clawing at the walls, fighting for air. And when the doors were finally opened at Dover’s Eastern Docks in the darkness of yesterday morning, all but two were dead.
As Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, vowed to stamp out the “evil” trade in peoplesmuggling, the full horror of the victims’ journey from Zeebrugge on Sunday began to unfold. Details emerged from hospital sources of a brief conversation the survivors, both men, had had with an interpreter. Under police guard at an undisclosed Kent hospital and still traumatised by their ordeal, they described the moments of panic as their air began to run out.

The hospital source said: “They were all clawing at the inside of the back door.”They said it was very dark inside the trailer so they were tripping over dead bodies as they tried to make their wayto the doors. They said they banged on the doors and shouted at the top of their voices, but eventually they had to give up through weakness.”They had no idea how many of the people with them had died until they got to the hospital this morning.”Only the survivors and the Dutch driver of the vehicle know how long they had been packed into the tiny space on one of the hottest days of the year. It is likely the survivorswould also have died had it not been for the driver’s behaviour.As post-mortem examinations began, it was reported that the driver had paid for his passage from Zeebrugge aboard the P&O European Pathway in cash. Most companies have billing accounts.It is understood that at the P&O Stena Line office in Zeebrugge the driver gave the owner’s name as Van Der Spek Transporten at an address in Terbregtseweg, Rotterdam but could not provide some of the details of the lorry He said the company would provide them later. P&O Stena Line said it had not dealt with a company by that name before and had no company account.