"On the 21st of November, 2013, the roof of the Zolitūde Shopping Center in Riga, Latvia, collapsed without warning, trapping almost a hundred staff and customers within..."
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LearningTranscript
00:00On the 21st of November, 2013, the roof of the Zolitude shopping center in Riga, Latvia collapsed
00:18without warning, trapping almost 100 staff and customers within. The disaster, which was the
00:24worst to take place in Latvia in almost 60 years, would change the country forever,
00:30with consequences that reached all the way up to the highest ranks of government.
00:37Construction of the Zolitude shopping center was completed in 2011. Before it even opened
00:44to the public it was hailed as a success, winning a Building of the Year award.
00:49The mall was of a bold glass and concrete design, with a flat roof and large windowed facade.
00:58Much of it was occupied by a Maxima supermarket, but there were also many other businesses,
01:03including a bank, a beauty salon, and a pet shop. It formed part of a complex of buildings,
01:11some dedicated to business and retail, and some residential. While definitely popular with the
01:18public, the shopping center did experience a few issues over the course of its lifespan.
01:23A small fire broke out a few months before it opened and did some damage to the building...
01:29damage which set back construction works but which was quickly repaired.
01:34Later on, as tenants moved in and began doing business in the mall, workers noted that the fire
01:41alarm sounded frequently, an annoying malfunction which was thought to be down to the alarm system
01:46reacting to dust in the air. Later still, workers came in one day to find their locker room
01:53completely flooded, and were told by maintenance workers that the foundations of the building
01:58required repairs. Despite these issues the Zolitude shopping center was looking to improve and expand.
02:06At the beginning of 2013 plans were made to install a rooftop garden. This would consist
02:13of a thin layer of topsoil covered with turf and landscaped with cobbled paths and plant beds.
02:19It would be a pleasant spot for shoppers and residents of the adjoining apartment complex to
02:24take a stroll during the day. At the same time as work on the garden was taking place,
02:30the mall was also installing an underground parking garage. The two simultaneous projects
02:36meant that many builders were constantly coming and going, and that fire alarms were frequent as
02:41dust from the works tricked the faulty alarm sensors. As annoying as all this might have been,
02:47though, it wasn't thought of as being any cause for concern... at least not until the 21st of November
02:542013. At 4.21pm on the day of the collapse a fire alarm sounded throughout the shopping center.
03:04By this stage, having gone through so many false alarms before, staff weren't overly concerned.
03:11Many of the smaller shops evacuated and shut their doors, but staff in the Maxima supermarket
03:16were relaxed enough about the alarm that many customers didn't feel compelled to leave.
03:22Mall security looked for danger using the CCTV system and, finding none, declared the situation
03:28a false alarm, just as they had many times before. This fire alarm probably had no connection to what
03:36happened next. It was simply a routine false alarm that came at a fortuitous time. Some of
03:42the people who evacuated when the alarm sounded were still outside the building when, an hour later,
03:48the roof suddenly buckled and collapsed inwards. The collapse began over the checkout counters in
03:55the Maxima supermarket, and was large enough to completely obliterate several produce aisles as
04:00well. In the space of just a few moments a huge quantity of concrete and steel crashed down,
04:07injuring and trapping almost a hundred people. The rescue effort began immediately, with firefighters
04:14and paramedics flocking to the scene. Many people from other parts of the mall were able to evacuate
04:20themselves, while rescuers worked together to locate and extricate 20 lucky survivors from
04:27the rubble. With the damaged building deemed safe to work within, they began digging further down
04:34through the debris to reach those trapped below. At 7.04pm a secondary collapse occurred.
04:42Another huge section of the roof fell without warning, directly onto the firefighters working
04:47below, many of whom now became casualties in need of rescue themselves. To complicate matters further
04:55the rescue operation could now no longer proceed as quickly as it had before. Now that it was clear
05:02that the building was unstable only a small number of firefighters were allowed into the
05:06danger zone at any one time, and were then only permitted to work there for short periods of time.
05:14Great efforts were made to pinpoint the likely location of casualties. Search and rescue dogs
05:20were brought in, but were unable to help as the wreckage was permeated with the scent of spilled
05:26supermarket produce. The powerful scent of hundreds of broken bottles of alcohol and
05:31spilled containers of bleach obscured the scent of buried victims. Similarly, equipment designed
05:38to detect body heat was of no use, as the rubble was simply too thick for it to penetrate.
05:45In the end rescuers relied on listening for the sound of mobile phones within the rubble,
05:50and later to examining recovered CCTV footage to pinpoint exactly where shoppers and staff had been
05:57when the collapse took place. Though help was offered by neighbouring countries it was turned
06:04down. Latvian authorities were sure that they had enough manpower to deal with the crisis.
06:09After several days of near-constant work the rescue effort was called off on the 25th of
06:14November. This left the final death toll at 54, including three firefighters killed in the
06:22secondary collapse. A further 41 people were injured in the incident, but went on to survive.
06:31In the aftermath of the disaster many different things were put forward as possible causes.
06:36Many suspected that the roof garden, with its heavy layer of topsoil, put too much strain on
06:43the roof. Others posited that the fire which had taken place just before the shopping centre opened
06:49to the public had weakened the structure of the building. The faulty fire alarm was also raised
06:55as an issue. This was something that should have been addressed promptly rather than left until
07:00false alarms became routine. Were the alarms reacting to dust from the crumbling roof?
07:06Would an investigation into the faulty alarm system have given advance warning of the structural
07:12failure? And, if staff had not been so inured to the constant fire alarms, would more people
07:18have been outside rather than inside when the building fell? While these factors were all
07:24important parts of the incident, the root cause was something much more fundamental.
07:30Examination of the wreckage showed significant signs of metal fatigue,
07:34fatigue which had been slowly worsening for years. It seemed that from the moment it was built the
07:41Zolitude shopping centre was doomed to fall, with the only real question being when that
07:48collapse would happen. The problem, essentially, was poor design and construction. In several spots
07:55loads had been miscalculated, leading to support structures that just weren't strong enough to
08:01bear the weight of the roof. This overloading was what had caused the slowly worsening metal fatigue.
08:08Additionally, where the design had called for several long steel beams these had been replaced
08:14by shorter beams bolted together. This change in design, which had been made without notifying or
08:21seeking approval from authorities, created a weak spot where an initial structural failure could
08:26begin. And this was exactly what had happened. When the roof gave way it did so where these
08:33beams were bolted together. Once the collapse had begun the extreme metal fatigue throughout the
08:39building brought down the rest of the roof. Who was to blame for these issues was a difficult
08:46question. The architects blamed the company which manufactured the steel beams. The company which
08:52manufactured the beams blamed the company which manufactured the bolts. The company which
08:57manufactured the bolts blamed the architects for using the bolts incorrectly. Ultimately
09:04responsibility fell on the building's civil engineer for the errors he had made in his calculations.
09:10Ivar's Sergets was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the disaster, while all
09:16others involved were acquitted. The fallout from the collapse didn't end there, though. While Sergets
09:23had made mistakes there should have been mechanisms in place to catch these errors. One reason why
09:30there were no safety nets of this kind was that during the global financial crisis a few years
09:36before state inspection of buildings had been eliminated in order to cut costs.
09:44As such, when the Zolitude Center was constructed regulation and inspection was minimal. The
09:50opportunity to catch errors and question design decisions was missed completely. In a turn of
09:56events that is relatively rare following a disaster, senior government ministers accepted
10:02responsibility for allowing regulation to lapse. The Prime Minister of Latvia resigned and a change
10:09of government took place. A complete overhaul of the way in which the construction industry was
10:14regulated quickly followed. The site of the collapse was eventually cleared and set aside
10:22for a memorial to those who lost their lives. A national day of mourning was declared on the 24th
10:28of November each year, and the incident is still very present in the minds of Latvian citizens.
10:35It demonstrates the harm that can arise from a lack of care, from a deferral of responsibility,
10:42from faulty bolts and inadequate beams. Small things on the surface, but of consequence
10:49enough to change lives, destroy buildings, and bring down a government.