House near Lahoisk being restored, reasons for blast undisclosed (photo)
Euroradio visited the accident site and watched the restoration of the demolished house.
The blast in the military settlement near the village of Malinauka in Lahoisk district happened in February. As a result, an entrance of a big three-storeyed building was totally demolished, one person died and several more were severely injured. However, a month later the authorites decided to...restore the building. They even set the terms - till July 1.
Meanwhile, the residents of the demolished house tell Euroradio that they still don't know the official reason for the accident.
"You know, we haven't seen the exterts' conclusion yet. Or maybe, they failed to show it to us? I remember that they told us the Investigation Committee had completed its work and would disclose the results of hte investigation in May", - says Tamara Bukleyeva.
They started re-building the house in April. At first, they demolished the damaged entrance and the apartments adjusted to it and then they started renewing the building of bricks.
This is an interesting decision as it is a panel building. However, the builders assure that modern materials allow to create a monolyte structure.
Now they are working at the first level.
They will never manage to complete it till the initial deadline - July 1. They
say they will make it till October, if there are no problems with the
materials. There have been no such problems so far - all approaches to the
building are piled with red bricks and concrete-metallic constructions.
Meanwhile, the former residents of the house live at their friends', relatives
or rent apartments.
"We rent accommodation. They pay us 100 USD from the charity fund created by the whole country".
The citizens provided money for the casualties. The military men alone collected 180 million roubles. The greatest part of the money went to a young Lieutenant who became disabled as a result of the blast.
"The Ministry of Defense also collected money. The officers from all units. They collected about 180 million. 100 million went to the Lieutenant whose leg was torn off by the blast. The rest of the money was divided".
This is how the house looked several hours after the blast.
While the officials linger with publication of the official version of the blast, non-official versions are spreading around Lahoisk. The taxi-driver who delivered Euroradio's correspondent to the accident site speaks about gas. The fixed-route minibus driver says there were explosives. Representatives of the district executive committee also say it was the domestic gas blast but add that there was no gas, it was turned off several hours before. As for the Investigation Committee - they keep silence, we could not get an official comment from them so far.