Latvia president calls supermarket collapse 'murder'
BBC News online -- 23 November 2013
The BBC's Damien McGuinness: President Berzins said those responsible must be held to account
The Latvian president has described the collapse of a supermarket in the capital Riga as "murder".
Andris Berzins said many defenceless people had been killed
and that should be the basis for the investigation into the disaster.The current death toll is 54 but some 10 families have told police they have missing relatives.
Late on Saturday, the last remaining section of roof caved in, causing panic in nearby streets and buildings.
The BBC's Damien McGuinness, reporting from the scene, said only the walls of the supermarket now remain standing.
Officials have said soil from a garden being built on the roof of the shop may have caused Thursday's collapse.
Latvia has begun three days of national mourning for the deadliest disaster since the former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991.
"These three days of mourning
are very necessary to go from the mindset of helplessness to rethinking
what each of us has done so that we can act in practical manner, because
this is an event where we must clearly say that this is a large scale
murder of many defenceless people and act accordingly," President
Berzins told public LTV broadcaster.
He said an investigation should be held at "maximum speed".And he went on to say: "While not undermining the professionalism of our builders, I believe that we should call upon international expertise which is in no way connected with our construction business.
"We cannot call it a natural accident, because nature wasn't involved. The evening was calm and silent with a little fog. This is our own made disaster."
At the scene
Latvian families hold each other and cry, as they lay flowers beside a huge pile of rubble. The remains of supermarket shelves and shop goods, such as toilet rolls, poke out from the broken stones.
But alongside the sorrow, a new feeling is starting to emerge. Anger. A fierce debate has broken out about who is to blame.
In a no-holds barred interview given to Latvian television, President Andris Berzins described the tragedy as the "mass murder" of innocent civilians.
He said the tragedy shouldn't be called an accident because the deaths were not caused by an act of nature.
And he said the criminal probe should be led by independent investigators from abroad - implying that powerful business interests in Latvia are too closely entwined with politics to ensure a fair and honest investigation.
Questions surround whether safety standards were ignored when this building was constructed in 2011; or whether work on a roof garden, which was being built on top of the store, was carried out in a negligent manner.
Rescue teams have been working round
the clock at the Maxima supermarket, digging in the wreckage of the
single-storey concrete and glass building to see if anyone is still
trapped inside.
They have been periodically turning off all their equipment
and asking the families of missing people to phone their relatives so
they can pinpoint the ring tones in the debris.Ten families have told the police that they believe their loved ones could be among the rubble, our correspondent says.
But, 48 hours on, hopes of finding anyone else alive are fading, he adds. By late Saturday the death toll had risen from 52 to 54.
Many people have been laying flowers and lighting candles in commemoration of the dead.
Thirteen firefighters were among some 40 wounded, and 29 people were in hospital as of Saturday morning, the fire and rescue service said.
The initial collapse happened just before 18:00 (16:00 GMT) on Thursday, when the Maxima store was busy with customers.
About 20 minutes later another part of the roof caved in, trapping rescue workers who were trying to reach survivors.
A wide-angled view of the scene of the collapsed supermarket in Riga
Rescuers have been searching through the rubble in a bid to find further survivors
But, 48 hours on from the disaster, hopes of finding anyone else alive are fading
Three days of official mourning have begun in Latvia.
A garden area was being built on the roof
of the supermarket at the time of the collapse. These plans show what
it would have looked like.A rooftop garden with children's playground was being built on the top of the building. There is speculation it may have been unable to support the large amount of building materials and soil that was believed to be on the roof at the time.
Local media said the building, rented by the Maxima chain, had been awarded a national architecture prize when it was completed in 2011.
But the inquiry will now investigate whether building regulations were broken.
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, November 23, 2013
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