|
Putin threatens to punish culprits in building collapse
A general view of the Transvaal water park ruins, Moscow. Twenty-five people were confirmed dead in the disaster, which struck the Transvaal Park on Moscows southwestern outskirts Saturday night.
|
By Erin RiceStaff Writer
Victims rushed from the Transvaal AquaPark in Moscow on the eve of Valentine’s Day as the roof of the water park collapsed, killing 19 children and six adults and sending nearly 800 others into deep banks of snow.
President Vladimir Putin has sworn retribution to anyone found responsible, saying, according to MSNBC that “The culprits must be punished.” However, as the investigation continues it is becoming more apparent that the disaster was a structural malfunction and not a terrorist attack.
Only eight hours after a Moscow subway train was destroyed by a bomb, children attending a birthday party and numerous other individuals were hurled into the slightly above zero weather with only swimsuits to keep them warm.
According to CNN, the death toll came to 26, while frostbite and hypothermia sent many more to the hospital. Close to 110 others suffered serious injuries from the collapsing roof.
As further reported by CNN, Moscow rescue teams pumped warm air into the rubble in order to keep trapped victims alive in the cold climate.
Unfortunately, even after repeated periods of complete silence, no calls for help were heard amid the ruins, and the search for survivors ended Sunday evening.
The disaster forced government officials to begin an investigation of many buildings throughout Moscow with similar designs.
According to The Associated Press, the Moscow sports arena was designed very similar to the indoor water park.
Nikolai Koshman, the top official in Russia’s governmental agency overseeing the fulfillment of construction safety standards, commented to The AP that it is the government’s plan to establish an official panel whose “pain task [will be] to look at the foundation, the analysis of the ground conditions, and the design decisions taken … and the quality of metal and concrete used.”
While reports dealing directly with the building collapse are due near the end of the week, many have cited an even deeper problem lurking under the surface of this recent disaster.
Victor Ovsyanikov, a construction worker quoted by Russia’s daily Gazeta, touched on the problem when commenting, “In Russia, they try to finish and sell buildings as quickly as possible, and they don’t care about what will happen next.”
The Russian media have used this catastrophe to show how neglect of regulations and official corruption have led to increased problems in the area of public safety.
The government is also beginning to look into problems such as those outlined by Ovsyanikov and the Russian media, and took first steps this week by suspending the licenses of the Turkish construction company Kocak Insaat and the Russian architectural company Sergei Kiselyov & Partners.
Both companies have denied responsibility for the collapse. According to MSNBC, Ismail Kocak, CEO of Kocak Insaat, has blamed the collapse on poor maintenance, claiming that the construction allowed for five feet of accumulated snow on the roof — twice the amount measured on the roof at the time of the collapse.
Another possible cause, according to The New York Times, was poor ventilation, which worked to weaken the strength of support beams by subjecting them to constant temperature variations between the outside air and inside heat.
This problem was perpetuated by the glass and concrete exterior, which caused great amounts of expansion and contraction as the weather changed.
Yet at this point, many are still in shock at how quickly the building collapsed on top of them. Roman Yazymin, a 29-year-old who was tanning at the time, commented to CNN that “everything was in blood.”
While the families begin to put their lives back together, the Russian government has promised relatives $3,500 for each victim killed in this accident, according to MSNBC.
|
