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Russian regional authorities buy apartment for man who saved occupants of collapsed house

A wall of a multi-storey brick house in the town of Yurevets collapsed on the morning of December 22

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Authorities in the Ivanovo Region have purchased a new flat for Vladimir Galochkin who rescued the residents of a building that had caved in on December 22 in the town of Yurevets, in the Ivanovo Region, the regional administration’s press service reported on Wednesday.

A wall of a multi-storey brick house in Yurevets collapsed on the morning of December 22. No injuries were reported, because Galochkin noticed a crack in the wall, woke up the neighbors, and got them to leave the building. The man himself told TASS that he managed to take the last house dweller, an elderly woman, out of the building seconds before it was reduced to rubble. The local authorities also awarded him a Medal of Merit for the Ivanovo Region.

"The first apartment was purchased for Vladimir Galochkin’s family, who managed to warn his neighbors of the imminent threat in an emergency situation," the report says.

The regional government pointed out that the registration procedure for the apartment’s documents had been completed. Besides, the Yurevets District received 38.5 mln rubles ($682,484) from the regional head’s reserve fund to purchase flats for the other residents under the order issued by acting Ivanovo Regional Governor Stanislav Voskresensky.

The press service added that a total of 64 people were left homeless. About half of them are currently staying in temporary accommodation facilities, and about 30 people are living with their relatives. Experts who examined the building’s construction where the collapse occurred had earlier admitted that the entire house was in an advanced state of disrepair and further occupancy there was impossible. Regional prosecutors say that the collapse might have been caused by the absence of a drainage system in the building, which led to the undercutting of the house’s foundation by ground waters. Based on this fact, the regional Investigative Committee department are pressing criminal charges on counts of executing work or furnishing services that fail to comply with health and life safety requirements.