Moscow's mayor said there was no hope of finding any more survivors in the freezing wreckage of a Moscow water park on Sunday where about 40 people were feared killed by a roof that collapsed on bathers.
Yury Luzhkov said 25 people were confirmed dead in the accident on Saturday evening, when the huge complex of indoor pools and water slides was packed with middle-class Muscovites.
Russian television said the roof had given way over a children's pool and the Emergencies Ministry said between four and six children were among those killed.
At least 110 people were injured and 17 were still missing, the ministry said, but Luzhkov said there was no chance of rescuing more people in the below-freezing temperatures.
"There is no hope survivors can be found," he told Russian Channel One television, but said efforts would continue through the night to clear the scene.
He said design or construction mistakes were to blame for the collapse of the snow-laden roof at the complex of pools and waterslides built just two years ago. Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier blamed shoddy building.
"It's time to stop this chaos and establish control when these kinds of sites are being built," Shoigu said, referring to a rush of new construction in the Russian capital.
"We will now be picking through the ruins," a spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry said.
Luzhkov said officials were checking unopened lockers at the aqua park, some of which might contain belongings of people still missing.
The horror struck on a busy evening at the popular new center, shattering peace in a city already on edge after at least 40 people died in a metro train bombing 10 days ago.
"It's scary just to walk around the city with things exploding," said a Muscovite named Sveta. "And it's scary to go to these kinds of places, especially since it's not even sabotage -- it's just the construction."
By Sunday evening, rescuers were pulling down the last concrete roof panels still hanging from the remaining walls of the two-year-old Transvaal Park complex, whose Web site said it won a Moscow city award as a top investment and construction project in 2002.
Shoigu said all roofs of the same type in Moscow were being checked.
Children badly injured
Luzhkov said 27 children were in hospital, five in critical condition. Doctors said they were suffering from severe wounds, broken bones and shock.
Heat cannons were used earlier on Sunday to blast the site with warm air in the hope of saving any trapped survivors from freezing to death. But shards of glass cut the feet of sniffer dogs, hampering the search.
More than 420 people were below the section of roof which gave way up to 60 feet above them.
Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into any possible failure to fulfill "professional obligations."
State television reported the Turkish contractor, Kocak Insaat, and the architects, Sergey Kisselev & Partners, had had their licenses suspended.
Neither company was available for comment. Kisselev includes Russian President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin residence among its portfolio of projects.
Kocak Insaat was quoted by Interfax as saying it was "shocked and at a loss."
"We have never had a situation of this kind before," the agency quoted company representatives as saying.
Television earlier showed rescuers hauling victims out in blankets, their bare and bleeding limbs hung over the edges of makeshift stretchers, in a scene reminiscent of the metro blast.
Putin, facing re-election in March, blamed the metro blast on Chechen rebels. The mayor, however, said the pool roof collapse was "not an act of terror."
(China Daily February 16, 2004)
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