At least 49 dead after Moscow roof collapse

The snow-covered roof of a large Moscow market collapsed early today, killing at least 49 people and forcing rescuers to clear away concrete slabs and metal beams to reach possible survivors trapped in the wreckage.

A fire broke out on the edge of the collapse site mid-afternoon, sending acrid smoke billowing into the air.

Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said it erupted when a spark from an electric saw used to cut through metal ignited some paint, and that it posed no threat to anyone trapped in the wreckage.

“There is nobody there,” he said of the edge of the disaster site.

Rescue workers used metal cutters and hydraulic lifters to clear the ruins of steel and concrete.

Workers used pickaxes to cut holes in the wreckage and knelt to call into the holes in search of survivors.

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who went to the site to oversee rescue efforts, said terrorism was unlikely.

“Chances are more than 90% that a terrorist act can be ruled out,” he said. “It was a technical accident.”

Twenty-seven people were injured, including two rescue workers, Luzhkov said.

Medical workers tried to help a man trapped under a slab of concrete that left only his hand visible, giving him painkillers through an intravenous drip. Rescuers used machines to blow warm air into the rubble to try to keep victims alive in the near-freezing temperatures.

Trapped survivors called relatives using mobile phones, helping rescuers find them, said Yuri Akimov, deputy head of the Moscow department of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

The victims were municipal and market workers, most believed to be workers from outside Moscow. Most Moscow markets are staffed by migrants from the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus region and central Asia.

Russian media reported some market workers lived in the basement of the building. Many migrants encounter trouble getting police permission to live in Moscow apartments.

Sniffer dogs were helping locate survivors beneath the rubble, Beltsov said.

“There may be people alive under there but time is passing,” Beltsov said, adding that many panels had fallen on top of one another “so it would be hard for a person to be (alive) in there”.

Luzhkov said 49 people had been confirmed dead by early afternoon.

Emergency officials said it was impossible to say how many people had been in the market at the time of the collapse. Russian news agencies quoted some survivors as saying up to 150 people could have been inside.

Investigators were looking at three possible causes of the collapse: improper maintenance of the building, a build-up of snow and errors in the building’s design, Moscow prosecutor Anatoly Zuyev said.

Two to three inches of snow had fallen overnight, on top of 18.5 inches that had fallen since the start of winter, the Russian Weather Service said.

Ekho Moskvy radio said the entire roof, covering an area of about 2,400 square yards, had fallen onto the market stalls.

“The main task now is not to let the building collapse further,” Akimov said.

Luzhkov said the roof was designed to clear itself of snow.

“The roof was designed to take a large amount of snow cover, and there was a special gutter pipe that was always left open so the melted snow could run down, so there was no special need to have the roof cleared of snow,” the mayor told reporters.

Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation on charges of negligence leading to the deaths of two or more people, RIA-Novosti said.

Ukhtai Salmanov, a 52-year-old herb-seller from Azerbaijan, said he had been leaving the market at about 4.50am local time (1.50am Irish time). Near one of the exits “I heard a loud noise and I fell to the ground and lost consciousness. When I came to, I was lying by the entrance.

“There was smoke and people were screaming,” Ukhtai said, his clothes covered in dust.

Fighting back tears, he said his three sisters, who also worked in the market, were killed. There was no way he could have saved anyone, he said, because a mound of rubble blocked him from reaching them.

A crowd of relatives of market workers stood outside the police tape, crying and shouting.

Interfax said that the market had been designed in the 1970s by Nodar Kancheli, the same architect who drafted the plans for Moscow’s Transvaal water park, where the roof collapsed in February 2004, killing 28 people. Prosecutors have blamed that collapse on design flaws.

Kancheli visited the market, one of the capital’s largest, early today.

“I think one possibility is a big build-up of snow,” Kancheli told Ekho Moskvy radio. “They set up kiosks on the mezzanine, which was not originally planned.”

He said that corrosion also could have played a role.

Luzhkov said that the Bauman Market, also known as the Basmany Market, was among buildings designed by Kancheli’s firm that had been checked for safety after the Transvaal disaster.