Supermarket roof collapses in Riga, Latvia, killing 53 people.

[Huntsman]

Wow.. This just came up on the evening news in my country, I'm shocked... RIP for the Latvian brothers who died...

This morning, 26 dead bodies have been recovered from the collapsed Maxima supermarket in the Riga suburb of Zolitude, the news agency LETA was told by State Police press representative Sigita Pildava, writes The Baltic Course.

35 people have been injured, of which 28 have been hospitalised, the Emergency Medical Service informed LETA.

Most of the injured persons are between the ages of 25 to 45, State Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman Viktorija Sembele told LETA.

It is not yet known how many people are still under the rubble of the collapsed Maxima supermarket, State Fire and Rescue Service Chief Oskars Abolins told Latvian Television (LTV) this morning.

Huge resources are being put into the rescue operation, as rescuers are doing everything they can to get the trapped people out, writes The Baltic Course. Abolins believes that the rescue operation could continue for another 24 hours, or even longer.

As Abolins points out, the rescuers are working at a high risk object. The condition of the building is being evaluated on a constant basis, so to be sure that other areas of the building do not collapse on the rescuers.

The rescuers use machinery as well as shovels and bare hands to remove the rubble so as to not injure those who are still trapped inside and may be alive.

Maxima Latvija spokesman Janis Beseris told the business information portal Nozare.lv that there was some sort of sound signal before the collapse of the Maxima supermarket last night, but that the details will be determined during the investigation.

Beseris said that what this sound signal was will be determined by the police investigation, and emphasised that the supermarket chain’s representatives have been requested by police not to comment on unofficial information, so not to hinder the investigation.

Beseris could not say how many persons were working in the supermarket at the time of the collapse, but promised to release this information at a later time.

Rescue workers pulled more bodies from the ruins of a collapsed supermarket in the Latvian capital, Riga, this morning taking the death toll to 37 with others feared buried in the rubble.
Cranes lifted large slabs from the wreckage of the Maxima store, in a suburb of grey, Soviet-era housing, to try to find those trapped after the roof collapsed last night when it was full of shoppers on their way home from work.
Another 35 people were injured, with 28 of them hospitalized, including 10 firefighters struck just as they entered the unstable building, Fire and Rescue Service said.

Lithuania has declared the upcoming Sunday a mourning day for the baltic brothers who have fallen or been injured in this tragedy as a sign of support. For Latvia itself this has been the biggest tragedy of this century.



Sources:

http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/57587/death-toll-in-maxima-supermarket-tragedy-in-riga-increases-to-26-201357587/
http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/57620/lithuania-intends-to-announce-national-mourning-over-the-tragedy-in-riga-201357620/

[Chris_Knight]

51 currently dead...

[Huntsman]

51 currently dead...

The latest news said 53.. Unless I misheard it... Anyways, my condolences to the families...  May these people rest in peace... Damn...

[thejorens]

Some news sources here in Latvia claim that the death toll is way higher, but being quieted down a little bit.
I don't even know what to believe.
I do live across town from there so noone I personally know was injured or killed, still depresses me heavily though.
Wikipedia, speedy as usual.

[Gandalf]

Condolences to all people who lost someone or got hit by this disaster.
Nothing else to say on it, except that I hope they find how this could have happened and if it is a case of ignoring correct procedures punish those responsible severely.

[thejorens]

Condolences to all people who lost someone or got hit by this disaster.
Nothing else to say on it, except that I hope they find how this could have happened and if it is a case of ignoring correct procedures punish those responsible severely.

The probable cause of the accident, as I heard this morning, was the fact they were installing a green roof, there was some soil laid all across the roof, but the job hadn't been finished yet, so the craned up 20t bags of soil on the roof got soaked in the rain which overloaded the roof.
Hasn't been confirmed yet, but the facts seem to align.

[Dean.]

The usual case in such accidents is either weak/cheap material or bad maintenance. Both are results of CEO's who rather have risk an accident like this than to spend some money on good supplies.

Rest in peace.

[Inposible]

As i am from LV, the news JUST said there are 52 confirmed that have lost their lives. The works are still in progress of removing blocks of concrete and constructions in hopes to find other posible victims. The major reason why the roof collapsed was they were building a garden of some sort on the roof which obviously put ALOT of weight on the constructions. In winters the snow is shoveled off the roof, and now they built a garden on top of it.. Another posibility is they used Chinese screw's and bolts and whatnot, bad materials used. The supermarket opened only 2 years ago. The families of the lost, will be compensated 50,000LVL (96,000USD). And those who were injured, if i am correct, will be given 5,000LVL(nearly 10,000USD). This is simply unbelieveable, people only went shopping. Lets all pray and hope for the best. Lets have that moment of silence..

[miha1111]

I think they will find more dead bodies (unfortunately).....

Realy sad....


But what I dont get it how nobody ever asked themself if roof can support such massive weight and why the alaram (apparently store had some alarm which did warn them) hasn't been took seriously...

[thejorens]

But what I dont get it how nobody ever asked themself if roof can support such massive weight and why the alaram (apparently store had some alarm which did warn them) hasn't been took seriously...

There are at least 10 more people that have been reported missing in that accident, 35 were pulled out, but the eyewitnesses say there should have been at least 500 people in the store at that time...
The roof construction had been strength tested and engineers had confirmed that it, supposedly, could take the load.
A security guard, when the alarm went off, had gone to the basement, where the alarm had triggered, to check whats going on. Some welders were doing work there, so the guard assumed, as there was nothing else apparently wrong, that it must have been the smoke from the welding, so he shut the alarm up.

[Chris_Knight]

The HQ responsible for construction claimed the grass on top of the roof was not "heavy" and could not cause the damage. While the interviewed worker who was responsible for transporting it up there told that exactly 48 tons of grass was transported there.

[SugarD]

A security guard, when the alarm went off, had gone to the basement, where the alarm had triggered, to check whats going on. Some welders were doing work there, so the guard assumed, as there was nothing else apparently wrong, that it must have been the smoke from the welding, so he shut the alarm up.

As a person in the security profession, I can't even begin to say how common and wrong the actions this Security Guard took were. He should have immediately notified someone and investigated the situation further. Even if he silenced the alarm because he thought it went off accidentally, the actions taken were far from correct following such. People like that who don't take the effort and just assume are the whole reason why that profession gets a bad name...

As for those lost, this is indeed a tragedy. It will be difficult at best for the families to recover from such horrible events. My heart goes out to all of them. I only hope that no one from our community was among the victims. I know of at least a few players here that are from that country, although I'm not sure of how close to the incident they live.

[Inposible]

Dead people found so far has hit 54 unfortunately, the works of searching have been canceled till tomorrow morning. However, lets be happy that after today's 3rd collapsion, none of the 150 lifesavers were injured in any way. #PrayForLatvia

[Afyea]

Im an Latvian too... It's sad.. And i found a video of the roof collapsing 3rd time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25069941

[Huntsman]

I heard Lithuania is thinking of sending in firefighters to aid Latvian services, it might be a rumour though.