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And Finally, Kansas City Gets A Skywalk Memorial

Where: 2345 McGee Street [map], Kansas City, MO, United States, 64108

In 1981, the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Crown Center was the site of one of the worst hotel disasters in the country. Around 1,500 people were attending a popular "tea dance" in the lobby, when two overhanging skywalks suddenly collapsed through the ceiling. 114 lives were lost, and over 200 were injured. Now, after 30 years of honoring the victims, headway has been made on the construction of a Skywalk Memorial.

Due to be completed next summer, the structure will sit in Hospital Hill Park, only a block away from the hotel. On Sunday, an emotional crowd gathered for the annual memorial ceremony. To everyone's delight, committee members unveiled an artist's rendering of the monument itself, which features 114 individual lights that will "sparkle" by day and "illuminate" by night.

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Hotel News / Hotel Emergencies / Haiti Hotels / Choice Hotels / Hotel Disasters / → All Tags

Popular Tourist Hotel in Haiti Collapses After Massive Earthquake

Where: Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Yesterday afternoon, Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, was devastated by an enormous earthquake that's been estimated to be about a 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Thousands are feared dead, buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and houses.

As the country continues the rescue effort, reports are trickling in about significant damages and losses. One of those reports include the popular tourist hotel, Hotel Montana, located in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Reports say that at the time of the earthquake 300 people were inside but yet only 100 made it out alive after the building collapsed.

The hotel's website describes its location as "far from the turbulence of the city, in the hills of Port-au-Prince, Hotel Montana is just ten minutes from all the shops, art galleries and restaurants of Pétion-Ville."

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Jakarta Update: Marriott Responds to Security Concerns

After last week's attacks on the JW Marriott Jakarta and Ritz-Carlton Jakarta hotels where suicide bombers killed a total of nine victims (including themselves), Marriott is responding by assuring the public that security measures were in place at the time of the blasts — and that the company will be looking into ramping up security in their properties.

Sadly, this is not the first time in the last several years that Marriott hotels have been a target of major attacks. In 2003, another attack on the JW Marriott Jakarta killed 12 people, and in 2008, dozens were killed in a Marriott Islamabad bombing.

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Jakarta Update: Suicide Bombers Were 'Posing As Hotel Guests'

Yesterday's attacks on the JW Marriott Jakarta and the Ritz-Carlton Jakarta have left eight people dead and 150 injured. According to current reports, "suicide bombers posing as hotel guests" are thought to have caused the explosions. Additionally, authorities found and defused a third bomb up in a guestroom on the eighteenth floor of the JW Marriott. The alleged bombers were supposedly guests at the Marriott.

Times Online describes the terrifying scene:

Bleeding victims, including foreign businessmen who had been in breakfast meetings, crawled and staggered out of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta’s Mega Kuningan business district after the explosions struck two minutes apart shortly before 8am.

Footage from a security camera at the Ritz-Carlton showed a suited man wearing a baseball cap, and carrying a backpack and a wheeled suitcase, entering the hotel’s first floor restaurant just before the explosion, which killed two people.

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Breaking: Fatal Blasts at JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton Jakarta

Some very sad news to report: at least two explosions hit the Ritz-Carlton and the JW Marriott hotels in Jakarta today.

According to the AFP:

Witnesses said they saw injured people being evacuated by car from the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the upscale Mega Kuningan business district in the centre of the city.

Police sealed off the area near the Ritz-Carlton and the JW Marriott hotels, an AFP correspondent said. Windows had been blown out of a second-storey restaurant at the Ritz Carlton.

The number of injuries is still unknown, though the Breaking News Wire Twitter is reporting six dead and 18 injured so far.

Sadly, this JW Marriott was also the site of a deadly terrorist attack in 2003.

We'll keep you updated on this story as it develops.

[Photo: Twitpic via The Age]