Latvian president calls supermarket collapse that killed 54 'murder'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/23/latvian-president-supermarket-collapse-murder

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The Latvian president has described the collapse of a supermarket which has claimed the lives of at least 54 people as "mass murder" of innocent civilians.

The remark by Andris Berzins came as the third and final part of the roof of the building in the capital, Riga, caved in on Saturday, prompting a fresh search for up to 10 people. Only the four walls now remain. The further collapse caused panic in a neighbouring shopping centre which shook violently and shoppers ran into the street fearful that it too would come crashing down.

Officials have said that soil and other material being used to build a garden on the roof might have caused the collapse last Thursday. At the time the disaster was made worse by the automatic doors to the supermarket jamming shut. Some 40 people were wounded, including 13 firefighters, and 23 people remain in hospital.

Latvia has begun three days of national mourning for the deadliest disaster since the former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991.

Berzins told public LTV broadcaster: "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 a 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."

He said an investigation should be held at "maximum speed". "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. This is our own made disaster."

Laila Rieksta-Riekstina, head of the state's child welfare department, said that 16 children had lost parents in the accident. Three of them had lost both parents.

Hopes of finding anyone else alive were fading as rescue teams were forced to stop work after the latest collapse. They are not expected to resume until on Sunday morning when efforts will be made by engineers to make the walls secure. Until that point, teams had been working round the clock, digging in the wreckage of the single-storey concrete and glass building to see if anyone was still trapped inside.

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