Construction, Crime, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation
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Tuesday, 19.03.2024, 02:38
Maxima supermarket collapse in 2013 could have been caused by fire on supermarket's roof – construction engineer
Sergets
believes that the roof could have been damaged in a fire that had occurred
during the earlier construction stages, as a result of which the roof's
framework could have been heated up to 600 degrees Celsius and become frailer
than it should have been. The fire that Sergets mentioned in his testimony
occurred on the supermarket's roof in 2011.
The other
reason why Maxima roof caved in was a
large amount of water that collected on the roof, as well as construction
materials that the builders had put on the roof.
Sergets
also told the court that his company HND
Grupa signed contract with architect office Kubs in August 2009 on preparing construction designs for the Maxima supermarket in Zolitude. He
reminded that no laws or regulations at the time stipulated the level of
technical detail of such designs, and the design in question only offered
general principles of how structural connections were to be built. The exact
details had to be decided by the construction company and its subcontractors.
HND Grupa has never designed, nor was it offered to
design, the metal framework of the supermarket's roof. That is a different part
of the project, designed by a qualified specialist, Sergets told the court. He
added that neither he, nor HND Grupa
had ever prepared detailed roof framework designs.
Sergets
first learned that he had allegedly participated in designing detailed elements
of Maxima construction when he was
ordered to visit the police, where he was presented a copy of such designs,
which the police received from Vikom
Industry, a company that built the roof framework, "with what they
said was my signature on them".
"I had
never signed those designs and I had never had any kind of agreements with Vikom Industry," said Sergets. He
went on to say that he had never known any employees from Vikom Industry.
As
reported, 54 people died and several dozen were injured as a Maxima supermarket in Riga's Zolitude
neighborhood collapsed on November 21, 2013. Construction experts have
concluded that the tragedy occurred as a result of wrongly calculated maximum
loads for the roof of the building.
The
Prosecutor's Office charged five persons with violations of construction
regulations and criminal negligence: Sergets, construction inspection expert Andris Gulbis, construction supervisor Martins Draudins, architect Andris Kalinka who designed the
supermarket, and construction company Re&Re
construction operations manager Stanislavs
Kumpins. Three Riga Construction Board officials – Janis Balodis, Marika Treija
and Aija Melnikova – were charged
with failure to act and criminal negligence.
Balodis and
Treija do not work at the Construction Board anymore. A Maxima employee, Inna
Suvajeva, is also a defendant in the case.
All nine
accused plead not guilty.