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Mechanic rescues six as building wall collapses in Russia’s Ivanovo Region

Vladimir Galochkin, a 59-year-old resident of the Russian town of Yuryevets, managed to evacuate a 90-year-old woman out of a building one second before its wall collapsed

IVANOVO, December 22. /TASS/. Vladimir Galochkin, a 59-year-old resident of the Russian town of Yuryevets, Ivanovo Region, managed to evacuate a 90-year-old woman out of a building one second before its wall collapsed. He claims to have rescued a total of six people.

The building wall collapsed on Friday morning, luckily leaving no casualties. According to the regional prosecutor general’s office all of the 54 people, who lived in the house, have been evacuated to a temporary accommodation center set up at a local agricultural college.

"An elderly woman lived on the second floor, she is 90 years old, hampered by poor eyesight and she can barely walk. She was barefoot, I had to act fast and nearly pull her by the hand. As soon as she walked out of her apartment to the landing, the wall collapsed but the landing remained intact," Galochkin told TASS.

He added that he and his retired wife lived on the third floor. "After three in the morning, I heard the walls cracking, (so I) grabbed a flashlight and went outside to find out where the sound was coming from. I saw cracks in the building’s wall, around one centimeter wide, which were coming all the way up to the fifth floor. I ran to the fifth floor and started knocking on doors and ringing bells," he added.

Galochkin works as a mechanic at the local maintenance company.