More than 80 people were injured on Thursday night when a section of the ceiling collapsed inside the Apollo Theatre in London during a performance, Reuters reported.
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" was on stage around 8;30 p.m. when masonry and debris fell onto the audience seriously injuring five people with no reports of fatalities, according to Reuters.
According to the London Ambulance Service everyone who was trapped inside had been freed, and a police spokesman added they "are not aware of any fatalities at this early stage," according to Reuters.
The theater seats 775 people and witnesses say the ceiling suddenly collapsed causing everyone to panic after realizing it was not part of the play, Reuters reported.
According to a Reuters reporter at the scene, Shaftesbury Avenue, considered the heart of London's theatreland, had been blocked prohibiting cars from entering and leaving the street.
"People were running in here with dust all over themselves, a woman told me she saw the ceiling falling down," Thomas Asihen, a manager of the McDonald's on the same block, told Reuters. He added that people were being brought out on stretchers from the theater by the paramedics.
London police are still investigating what caused the collapse, but state there is no reason to believe it was a deliberate act, according to Reuters.
"We saw the ceiling give way and it just dropped down onto the stalls. There was dust everywhere and people were screaming," Steve George, a cinema manager who took his wife to the show that night as a birthday gift, told Reuters, adding that everyone in the theater were quickly led out of the theater.
"I wanted to stay to help people ... but I was more in the way, so we left. I have no idea how many people would have been injured," George said.
