RIGA: Rescuers in Riga retrieved bodies from a collapsed supermarket yesterday and combed the rubble for survivors as the death toll from Latvia’s worst post-Soviet disaster mounted to 47.
The roof of the Maxima supermarket smashed down on customers during peak shopping hours around 6pm on Thursday in the Riga suburb of Zolitude.
Rescuers rushed to the scene, but many were themselves trapped when the roof caved in a second time.
“Everything was crashing down: the walls, the roof, everything!” witness Jana told LNT television in Riga, where flags were decorated yesterday with black ribbons of mourning.
“I don’t know what happened to the cashiers — if you were sitting down, there is no way you could have got out in time,” she said.
The tragedy shocked the small Baltic state, with the government declaring three days of mourning starting today and planning a moment of silence on Monday for its deadliest accident since regaining independence in 1991.
“We currently have 45 dead,” state fire and rescue service spokeswoman Viktorija Sembele said. She said earlier that at least 40 other people were wounded when about 500 square metres of the roof caved in.
An Armenian citizen may have been among the victims, the Latvian foreign ministry spokesman said, citing unconfirmed information from state police.
Police refused to say how many people were thought to be inside the two-year-old building, and there were fears that teenagers could have been among them as a high school is near the store.
Maxima board member Gintaras Jasinskas told reporters 30 employees were in the store at the time: “Two of them are dead, two are in hospital and two others have not yet been found.”
Also among the dead were three firefighters who were killed trying to rescue people following the first collapse.
“I am proud of my Dad—he died helping others, not thinking about himself,” a girl named Katrina whose father was among the dead said on social media.
Around 200 rescue workers, backed by military personnel, combed through the rubble through the night and remained at the scene Friday.
Firemen searched through the rubble and soil by hand and with the help of five large cranes and could be seen through the crater in the roof.
“We are working at maximum capacity but it’s a very dangerous situation in the building,” fire chief Oskars Abolins said.
Dozens of people gathered near the site, crying and holding out hope that their loved ones would still be found alive, even as more and more bodies were hauled out of the rubble and taken away in blue body bags. “My son’s friend is still in there. He worked in the store,” one woman said through tears.
afp
