Russian Apartment Building Collapses

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 04, 2002

Russian Apartment Building Collapses

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A nine-story apartment building collapsed Monday, killing at least one person and leaving more than 400 homeless. Clouds of dust hung over the heap of bricks and smoking furniture that once was their homes.

Rescue officials said that by Monday evening 304 of the 413 people registered to live in the workers' dormitory in St. Petersburg had been accounted for.

Andrei Bagotsky, head of the rescue effort, said one man was found dead of apparent suffocation in the collapse, which buried cars and sent up giant clouds of dust and black plumes of smoke.

Rescue workers said they were first alerted to a crack that appeared suddenly in an upper apartment in the boxy apartment building, and about 55 people were evacuated. Each eight-room apartment housed several families who shared a kitchen and bath, a common Soviet construction solution to housing shortages.

Within an hour, the top three floors of the building collapsed, and then part of the building burst into flames.

As residents huddled outside under rainy skies, the entire building buckled and crumbled to the ground.

Residents speculated that maintenance on the building's water pipes that began Monday morning could have been at fault. Police and firefighters said a gas leak or explosive device were also possibilities, but officials insisted that only an investigation would determine the cause of the accident.

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