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Moment of apartment block collapse caught on tape (VIDEO)
Published: 27 February, 2012, 21:38
Edited: 28 February, 2012, 13:32
An entire section of a high-rise block of apartments has collapsed in the Russian southern city of Astrakhan. (RIA Novosti / Evgeny Lukovtsev). Video uploaded to Youtube by Nemec73745 on 27 Feb. 2012
(3.1Mb) embed videoAn entire section of a high-rise apartment block has collapsed in the Russian southern city of Astrakhan following an explosion. Five people have been killed, five are still missing and 12 are injured.
A total of 26 people have so far been rescued, according to an Emergency Ministry spokesman. Some of them were pulled out from under the rubble. Seven people were hospitalized, some with serious fractures and injuries. Rescuers continue to dig the rubble in hopes of finding survivors.
The explosion took place at around 2pm local time. Initially the three lower floors collapsed, followed by the entire section of the building.
YouTube user Vadim128777 uploaded a video showing the very moment when the whole block of apartments collapsed.
In the comment below, he wrote that a man who, at great personal risk, came to help an old woman who was calling for aid. “She was crying and calling for help,” the user wrote. The building collapsed when the man reached the woman.
“We could hardly have run away,” he said.
It remains unclear how many people were at home at the time of the explosion. According to the official, 258 people lived in the block, including 90 in the crumbled section of the building. Ten people have been given temporary accommodation in a local school.
The likeliest cause of the tragedy is an explosion of natural gas, the Investigative Committee said. It is believed that tenants on the third or fourth floors may have illegally renovated their apartments, damaging the pipes in the process. However, investigators do not rule out the possibility that a suicide attempt by one of the tenants could have caused a gas leak resulting in the blast.
One of the tenants "had earlier expressed an intention to take his life and made suicide attempts by opening gas burners," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.
A throughout investigation into the blast has been started. A team from the Emergency Situations Ministry has arrived in Astrakhan.
Russian Prime Minister Putin has ordered that the Astrakhan communal services officials who were in charge of controlling the gas network be suspended from their duties until the end of the investigation.
(RIA Novosti)
(RIA Novosti)
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The iron clasps holding the prefab concrete panels together are exposed to the elements and have been rusting for 40 - 50 years. The laborers in the Soviet "workers paradise" didn't even have the sense to coat the exposed ion clasps to protect them from the weather.
Whenever I visited one of these apartments I ventured out on a balcony to look at the rusting iron clasps and decided not to tarry too long.
The best built apartment building in the entire Russian Federation are those which were constructed by the German prisoners after WW II. But, ordinary Russians do not have access to these apartments which are reserved for the "better class of people".
Another legacy of the USSR.
These apartment were built rapidly all over the USSR to house the people living in the "workers paradise" and were of such sloppy construction that it's a marvel they even held together.
The construction of these panel apartments proceeded in the following manner:
1. The laborers toiling in the "worker's paradise" began stealing the concrete, electrical wiring, heating ducts, furnaces, nails, screw, etc, as soon as the supplies arrived at the construction site. So the prescribes amount of material did not go into the construction, weakening the structure.
2. The drunken laborers in the "worker's paradise" didn't give a damn about their quality of work, and, I doubt they even knew what the term meant.
So, now the people, in the "workers paradise", stuffed into these poorly built ugly apartments, some times several families in one apartment sharing one kitchen and one toilet. And what is life like in these ugly teetering structures?
1. Walking through the front door of an unlit stairway one is greeted with a stench that makes the New York subway stations seem like rose gardens.
2. The hallways and stairs reek of urine. The floors of the hallways have soot marks as if the drunken residents had lit fires to keep themselves warn as they sit on the stairs, and trash is everywhere.
3. You take your life into your own hands as you enter a narrow lift that may or may not work. The doors close suddenly with such force that they almost break your shoulders if you get caught. Inside of the lift is all torn up and there is a smelly pile of dark stuff in the corner. You run out of the lift and walk up seven flights of trash strewn stairs. You have to push your way through surly faced drunks sitting on the stairs.
4. You get to your friend's apartment which is guarded by a steel door that would make some banks proud.
5. You ring the door bell and a voice from the inside yells "kto tam? You answer, and the door opens and the person says "get in quick".
Such is the life in these panel apartments built during the era of the Soviet "worker's paradise".
a tragic incident. my first suspicions (as previous engineering student) is to blame faulty engineering. notice that only the cantilevered section collapsed.
engineers will of course claim they are faultless & the math is perfect.
engineering is scary as (not just Russia, but every country!) most engineers are just very regular people. they are not some super-smart set. many of them are very bad at math (you need math for building to stand) & more focused on drinking & goofing off.
so sheets of the very important numbers get filled in with nonsense. then workers build to these specs trusting the numbers are okay.
i sometimes think of my dumb classmates (yes they graduated too, mostly by cheating/copying) when i walk over bridge or beside some big construction, and quicken my pace!