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[align=right]Sergei Grits / AP[/align]
A view of the Basmanny market Friday. Workers using heavy machinery dug through the rubble and removed sections of the roof in hopes of finding survivors.[/align]
Investigators are focusing on whether a design flaw or poor maintenance caused the roof of the Basmanny food market to collapse in east central Moscow last week, killing at least 66 people, mostly Azeri vendors.
The death toll could rise further, as emergency workers continued the search for bodies Saturday. The latest body was pulled from the rubble at 5:20 p.m.
About 150 vendors at the market at 47/1 Ulitsa Baumanskaya were trading at around-the-clock stalls, getting ready for business or sleeping when the roof fell in at 5:27 a.m. Thursday.
The dead included 45 Azeris, eight Georgians, five Tajiks, three Uzbeks, two Russians and one person with dual Russian and Georgian citizenship, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov told Ekho Moskvy radio on Saturday. Two more bodies remained unidentified.
Twenty-one people were in the hospital on Saturday, 12 in critical condition, the city health department said, Interfax reported.
On Friday, police detained the market's director, Mark Meshiyev, on suspicion of causing death by negligence, Moscow City Prosecutor Anatoly Zuyev said.
Meshiyev had been ordered to improve fire safety at the market two months ago by a Basmanny district prosecutor, Zuyev said, apparently suggesting that the market had a poor maintenance record, Interfax reported.
The roof's architect, Nodar Kancheli, who designed the roof of the Transvaal water park, which caved in and killed 28 people in February 2004, arrived at the scene two hours after the collapse had reduced the market to a heap of rubble.
Kancheli said the market's hubcap-shaped, concave roof was unusual because it was supported by a system of steel ropes rather than pillars. The building was completed in 1977, he said.
"The market was built a long time ago, and the organizations that operated it had to check the condition of the ropes," he said, Interfax reported.
Kancheli said that contrary to the building's design specifications, many vendors had set up stalls on the mezzanine, which was connected to the roof, RIA-Novosti reported.
Prosecutors interrogated Kancheli as part of the investigation on Thursday, said Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, Interfax reported.
Vyacheslav Glazychev, a professor at the Moscow Architecture Institute, said the design was not to blame for the collapse.
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[align=right]Vladimir Filonov / MT[/align]
A man after escaping the collapse[/align]
"Poor Kancheli! If a building has been up for 30 years, there can be no talk about a design fault," he said, Lenta.ru reported. Poor maintenance was a likely cause of the collapse, Glazychev said.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who arrived at the site Thursday, did not rule out poor design or maintenance as causes of the collapse, but said the construction materials used for the roof -- pre-stressed concrete -- could be at fault. Pre-stressed concrete is made by casting concrete over steel strands that are under high tension and therefore are more resistant to downward pressure.
"Such structures apparently require different materials," Luzhkov said, Interfax reported.
The age of the building could also be a reason why the roof fell, Luzhkov said. The roof was designed to withstand snow as thick as 1.4 meters, but measurements indicated that about 40 centimeters of snow was on the roof when it collapsed, Luzhkov said.
Luzhkov said experts had ruled out a terrorist attack, but the City Prosecutor's Office said investigators asked them to study if an explosion had taken place before the roof collapsed.
Up to 300 relatives and friends of vendors came to the market shortly after the first television reports of the collapse Thursday morning and anxiously watched the rescue effort from behind a police cordon on the next street, Baumansky Pereulok.
At about 1 p.m., a weeping man with a bruised nose appeared from behind the police cordon and spoke to a crowd of teary relatives and friends in Azeri.
"He said that all our brothers are dead there!" a woman exclaimed as she wept.
The man, Oktai Salmanov, who had been selling herbs at the market, said his three sisters, who also worked in the market, had been killed.
"Suddenly, everything collapsed. I was near the entrance, and that was how I managed to get out," Salmanov said.
A group of about 50 Azeri men attempted to break through the police cordon after an officer refused to allow a man to go identify a dead relative.
As the crowd received news of each increase in the death toll -- it grew by 10 in two hours Thursday afternoon -- relatives of the victims screamed and burst into tears.
An ambulance medic -- one of 50 that the authorities sent to the scene -- was nearby with sedative pills, water and injections for injuries.
The injured were rushed to hospitals Nos. 29, 36 and 52 and to the Sklifosovsky First Aid Institute.
Yury Akimov, first deputy head of the Emergency Situations Ministry's Moscow branch, said people under the debris were calling from their mobile phones, helping to direct rescuers, Interfax reported. Also, sniffer dogs were pointing rescuers to where people might be, he said.
Six cranes were able to approach the debris and clear large concrete slabs only after rescue workers cut the electric tram wires that blocked the way.
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[align=right]Vladimir Filonov / MT[/align]
Emergency Situations Ministry workers covering up the bodies of victims from the market collapse on Thursday.[/align]
Around 5:45 p.m., rescue workers said that there was no hope left of finding anyone alive underneath the collapsed roof. The Emergency Situations Ministry said it stopped looking for survivors on Friday morning.
Azeri Health Minister Oktai Shiraliyev arrived in Moscow on Saturday to arrange for the transportation of Azeri victims' bodies to their native country for burial. He praised Moscow's disaster relief efforts, including the treatment of the injured.
"Everything is being done to the fullest extent and even in excess of it," he told Channel One television after visiting a hospital.
The country's chief epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, said Saturday that workers should not sleep at markets overnight, when markets should be closed. The vendors would not have died if they had complied with this rule, he said, RIA-Novosti reported.
The State Duma faction of the nationalist Rodina party said it intended to ask City Hall for a list of buildings designed by Kancheli because "perhaps all of these buildings ... pose a threat to Muscovites," party leader Dmitry Rogozin said, Interfax reported.
City Hall closed the central Danilovsky market, which has a domed roof, immediately after the Basmanny market collapse on Thursday, and it remained closed Saturday when NTV television showed workers shoveling snow from its roof.
President Vladimir Putin ordered an investigation into the collapse Thursday. "We will have to conduct a thorough investigation and get objective information about the causes," he said.
On Friday, Luzhkov said he expected the cleanup to be completed by Monday, Interfax reported. A new shopping mall will be built on the site of the market, he said.
Luzhkov said Moscow had several other buildings whose roofs were designed by Kancheli.because it was supported by a system of steel ropes rather than pillars. The building was completed in 1977, he said.
"The market was built a long time ago and the organizations that operated it had to check the condition of the ropes," he said, Interfax reported.
Kancheli said that, contrary to the building's design specifications, many vendors had set up stalls on the mezzanine, which was connected to the roof, RIA-Novosti reported.
Prosecutors interrogated Kancheli as part of the investigation on Thursday, said Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, Interfax reported.
Vyacheslav Glazychev, a professor at the Moscow Architecture Institute, said the design was not to blame for the collapse.
"Poor Kancheli! If a building has been around for 30 years there can be no talk about a design fault," he said, Lenta.ru reported. Poor maintenance was a likely cause of the collapse, Glazychev said.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who arrived at the site Thursday, did not rule out poor design or maintenance as causes of the collapse, but said the construction materials used for the roof - pre-stressed concrete - could be at fault. Pre-stressed concrete is material made by casting concrete over steel strands that are under high tension and therefore are more resistant to downward pressure.
"Such structures apparently require different materials," Luzhkov said, Interfax reported.
The age of the building could also be a reason why the roof fell, Luzhkov said. The roof was designed to withstand snowfalls as thick as 1.4 meters, but measurements indicated that about 40 centimeters of snow was on the roof when it collapsed, Luzhkov said.
Luzhkov said experts had ruled out a terrorist attack, but the city prosecutor's office said investigators asked them to study if an explosion had taken place before the roof collapsed.
Up to 300 relatives and friends of vendors came to the market shortly after the first television reports of the collapse Thursday morning and anxiously watched the rescue effort from behind a police cordon in the next street, Baumansky Pereulok.
At about 1 p.m. a weeping man with a bruised nose appeared from behind the police cordon and spoke to a crowd of teary relatives and friends in Azeri.
"He said that all our brothers are dead there!" a woman exclaimed as she wept.
The man, Oktai Salmanov, who was selling herbs at the market, said that his three sisters, who also worked in the market, were killed.
"Suddenly everything collapsed. I was near the entrance and that was how I managed to get out," Salmanov said.
Then a group of about 50 Azeri men attempted to break through the police cordon after an officer refused to allow a man to go and identify a dead relative.
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[align=right]Vladimir Filonov / MT[/align]
Nasired Magomedova, left, crying Thursday. Her husband was in the market.[/align]
As news came through of each increase in the death toll -- it grew by 10 in the space of two hours Thursday afternoon -- relatives of the victims screamed and burst into tears.
An ambulance medic -- one of 50 that the authorities sent to the scene -- was staying nearby with sedative pills, water and injections for injuries.
The injured were rushed to hospitals Nos. 29, 36, 52 and the Sklifosovsky First Aid Institute.
Yury Akimov, first deputy head of the Emergency Situations Ministry's Moscow branch, said people under the debris were calling from their mobile phones, helping to direct rescuers, Interfax reported. Also, sniffer dogs were pointing rescuers to where people might be, he said.
Six cranes were able to approach the debris and clear big concrete slabs only after rescue workers cut the over-the-road electric tram wires that blocked the way.
Around 5.45 p.m. rescue workers said that there was no hope left of finding anyone alive underneath the collapsed roof. The Emergency Situations Ministry said it stopped looking for survivors on Friday morning.
Azeri Health Minister Oktai Shiraliyev arrived in Moscow on Saturday to arrange for the transportation of Azeri victims' bodies to their native country for burial. He praised Moscow's disaster relief efforts, including the treatment of the injured.
"Everything is being done to the fullest extent and even in excess of it," he told Channel One television after visiting a hospital.
The government's top sanitary official, Gennady Onishchenko, said on Saturday that workers should not sleep at markets overnight, when the markets should be closed. The vendors would not have died if they had complied with this rule, he said, RIA-Novosti reported.
The State Duma faction of the nationalist Rodina party said it intended to ask City Hall for a list of buildings designed by Kancheli because "perhaps all of these buildings Е pose a threat to Muscovites," party leader Dmitry Rogozin said, Interfax reported.
City Hall closed the central Danilovsky market, which has a domed roof, immediately after the Basmanny market collapse on Thursday, and it remained closed Saturday when NTV television showed workers shoveling snow from its roof.
President Vladimir Putin ordered an investigation into the collapse Thursday. "We will have to conduct a thorough investigation and get objective information about the causes," he said.
On Friday, Luzhkov said he expected the cleanup to be completed by Monday, Interfax reported. A new shopping mall would be built on the site of the market, he said.
Luzhkov said Moscow had several other buildings whose roofs were designed by Kancheli.
