The nine-storey building that collapsed last Monday in St. Petersburg is the third one this year. It is no exaggeration to say that the footage of the evening TV news from St. Petersburg last Monday shocked the world. An elderly woman leaning out of...

The nine-story building that collapsed last Monday in St. Petersburg is the third in a row this year

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It can be said without exaggeration that the footage of the evening TV news from St. Petersburg last Monday shocked the world. An elderly woman, leaning out of the window, cries for help, she holds the hand of a burnt baby by the hand - just a little more, and she will not stand it, let go of the child's hand. Around - flames, clouds of smoke, walls are already crumbling behind the distraught woman, and the only way to get out of hell is a window. Fortunately, firefighters managed to grab the boy and grandmother from the collapsing building. So, even though one-year-old Daniil Nabokov ended up in the hospital with burns and a concussion, on this day, one might say, he was born again ... And almost immediately after this, the building, enveloped in flames and smoke, as if in slow motion, begins to fall on its side, develops like a house of cards. Another moment - and clouds of dust and construction debris, into which a nine-story building has turned into in a matter of seconds, cover the surroundings with a gray cap ... Too many at that moment remembered other terrible shots: New York, September 11th. Scary. And it looks like.

Fortunately, everything turned out to be superficially similar. Neither the cause, nor even the horrific consequences of the St. Petersburg catastrophe have anything to do with New York.

According to official figures, three people died as a result of the collapse of the nine-story building - a 50-year-old man suffocated from carbon monoxide, and the bodies of a 30-year-old woman and a 15-year-old teenager were found under the rubble. Another 16-year-old girl is listed as missing. About 20 people received injuries of varying severity (including bruises and abrasions).

One of the dead is Olga Novikova, an employee of the Petrovsky bank branch, which was located on the first floor of the collapsed building. Rescuers say: they saw a woman in the room, but she could not get out on her own - the doors were jammed due to the skew of the building, and there were steel bank bars on the windows. Rescuers tried to knock down the bars, but did not have time ... Then they said that Olga called the police on her cell phone already from under the rubble. They tried to call her on her number, but the phone was no longer answered. Then her body was found under the rubble.

The cause of the Petersburg tragedy, fortunately, was not terrorist fanatics. Specialists led by Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu (who flew to the scene at about ten in the evening) are talking about subsidence of the foundation. The building cracked and began to lean to one side, the gas main and electrical wiring burst, a fire broke out due to a short circuit ... It remains to be found out what caused the subsidence.

Many blame SUE "Vodokanal" for this. On the morning of the ill-fated day, they began repairing the water pipes. They drove an excavator and began to dig a ditch, digging right under the foundation of the house. From one window at that moment, they say, a woman leaned out and began to swear with the workers: from such work, they say, the house will soon collapse. How to look into the water...

According to Vodokanal, they did not violate the technology - they worked at the request of the residents themselves and in accordance with the permission of the state administrative and technical commission. In addition, some residents of the house say that they began to notice small cracks on the walls even before digging the fatal foundation pit. So the drawdown could be caused by water in the basement and chronic leaking pipes. This is not ruled out by the Shoigu commission, calling one of the probable reasons for the subsidence of the foundation the leakage of the water conduit. Another version is groundwater, due to which the foundation of a house built only 30 years ago cracked.

It must be assumed that the state commission and the investigation will establish the causes of the incident (the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg opened a criminal case). But the question remains open: who is responsible for this? The question is not out of vindictiveness. For basic security reasons. Self-preservation instinct, if you will. After all, everyone knows about the bad St. Petersburg weather, marshy marshy soil and treacherous groundwater. As well as about the deterioration of engineering networks and dilapidated buildings, for the repair of which, as always, there is no money.

But St. Petersburg houses do not care about this. They continue to fall with terrifying regularity. This case is the third one this year. In March, the front of the hostel building on Polyarnikov Street collapsed, fortunately, there were no casualties. In May, four bays of a building that belonged to the Svetlana production association, which was no longer in use and was being prepared for sale, collapsed, so it swept again. And here is the tragedy on Dvinskaya Street. Again a hostel, and again a combination of circumstances that made it possible to avoid numerous victims. But what will happen tomorrow? And where can this happen? And have we become hostages in our homes of a chronic housing and communal crisis and absolute circular irresponsibility?