Church collapses, prompting 2-block evacuation over gas leak fears, NC town says
A small town in eastern North Carolina was forced to evacuate a two-block radius after a beloved church collapsed, creating fears of a dangerous gas leak.
Read more Rock Hill can finalize the $1.5B and 1,500 jobs Octapharma deal soon. Here’s how
It happened around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in Farmville, and firefighters arrived to find the middle of the church had crumbled, leaving the bell tower leaning at about a 25-degree angle. The brick building was unoccupied at the time, officials said.
Neighbors were whisked away at a community center until the gas line was secured at around 9:30 p.m., town officials said. No injuries were reported.
“Like so many in our community, I was saddened to learn of the structural collapse of the former Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church building,” Farmville Mayor Alex Joyner wrote in a July 22 Facebook post.
Read more Flooding possible as storms ‘repeatedly move over the same areas,’ forecasters say
“While the congregation relocated some time ago and the building was no longer being used for regular services, seeing the loss of a longtime landmark is still difficult for many who have memories connected to it. … Buildings are part of our history, but they are not what define a community. Farmville’s strength has always been its people.”
Investigators did not release a cause for the collapse, but neighbors told WITN the building “had been leaning for nearly a year.” Crews began taking down the remainder of the building Tuesday night, to prevent sections from falling onto power lines, the station said.
Farmville is in Pitt County, about a 70-mile drive southeast from downtown Raleigh.
Read more Charlotte broker submitted 17 false life insurance applications, NC officials say
