| Eleven workers burned alive at a construction site near Moscow Eleven people were killed and another 15 were burned as a result of a fire that occurred yesterday morning at a construction site in the village of Pavshinskaya Poima, Krasnogorsk district, Moscow region. All the victims were visitors from other regions who were recruited for the construction of a new residential area and lived in cabins there. The fire that broke out in one of them in a matter of minutes engulfed almost all the trailers in which the workers were sleeping, and people were trapped.
The prosecutor's office of the Moscow region took over the investigation of the criminal case into the death of people in the fire. Experts have not yet determined the cause of the fire. But yesterday, the senior foreman of the construction company Eko-ek, who was responsible for fire safety at the site, was detained. The prosecutor's office also has questions about the State Fire Inspectorate, which allowed the existence of electrified cabins at a construction site without permits. The prosecutor's office does not rule out that new arrests may follow as part of this case.
However, the investigation of this emergency will most likely not produce a detective story. The fact that thousands and thousands of illegal migrant workers work and live on construction sites in Moscow and the Moscow region is a well-known fact. Everyone also knows that the working and living conditions of workers contradict all possible norms and laws that must be followed at such facilities. Everyone understands why this is all happening: it is easier for construction companies to pay off with relatively small bribes from numerous regulatory authorities, who are quite openly ready to ignore obvious lawlessness for this. And officials from the relevant departments can only create the appearance of work only after such emergencies - when the number of victims is in the dozens. Most likely, in the coming days, the authorities will be outraged by what happened, conduct inspections of other construction sites, make a couple of presentations, and that will be the end of it - until next time.
According to the Moscow Region Department of Emergency Situations, the fire signal was received at 3.57. The first to notice the fire were employees of a traffic police post located nearby on Volokolamsk Highway. At first there was a call for a fire in one cabin, but by the time rescuers arrived, six metal container cabins were already burning, standing close to each other in two rows. The fire area was about 100 square meters. m, which by Moscow standards is relatively small. But firefighters were able to put out the fire only after 1.5 hours - there were no fire hydrants at the construction site, and water had to be transported by tanker trucks.
As it turned out, a total of about 30 people were sleeping in the burned out cabins. Half of them managed to escape from the trailers, while almost all received severe burns and carbon monoxide poisoning. Already in the morning, investigators found 11 bodies of the dead in the ashes.
All of them turned out to be mostly residents of the Smolensk and Tambov regions and came to the capital to earn money. Work on the construction of a residential area in the village of Pavshinskaya Poima was carried out around the clock, and the finished shift of concrete workers rested in the cabins.
Based on the fact of the fire, the prosecutor's office of the Moscow region opened a criminal case under the article “violation of fire safety rules resulting in the death of two or more persons” of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The investigation will be carried out by the department for particularly important cases. Now investigators, who spent the whole day yesterday at the construction site, are working on two versions - violation of fire safety rules and careless handling of fire. However, most likely, both will be confirmed in the end. As the Vremya Novostei correspondent was told by the Krasnogorsk district medical emergency department, the remains of furniture and household appliances - kettles and even a refrigerator - were found in containers not suitable for housing (essentially metal boxes lined with boards on the inside). And this in itself is a violation of many standards - both fire safety and administrative.
Yesterday evening, investigators detained Konstantin Chirkov, a senior foreman at the Eco-Ek construction company, which was responsible for the dead workers. According to the order of the director of the company, he was responsible for fire safety at the site. However, he may not be the only one responsible for the death of people. All day the day before, the prosecutor's office interrogated eyewitnesses of the fire, other managers of Eco-Ek and employees of the territorial division of the State Fire Inspectorate.
The “working” town on the construction site was organized at the beginning of October last year and from that moment existed without any permits. In particular, there were no permits for electrical wiring. However, there is nothing surprising in this. Similar residential camps for guest workers exist at almost all construction sites in the capital and burn in exactly the same way with enviable regularity.
May 12, 2003 - residential complex on the street. Aviation. Due to violations of safety rules when handling electrical appliances, a fire broke out in the underground garage where migrant workers lived. 10 dead.
March 10, 2004 -- as a result of a fire in cabins at a construction site on Anokhin Street, four workers died. The reason is a wiring fault.
November 14, 2004 - construction site on the 33rd km of the Yaroslavl highway, Moscow region. Five workers from Belarus died as a result of a fire in a cabin.
February 7, 2006 - in the village of Khlebnikovo, on the territory of the Vegeta fruit and vegetable base, a barn in which guest workers from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan lived caught fire. Eight dead. The reason was a violation of safety rules when operating electric heating devices. Eduard LOMOVTSEV |
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