On the 21st of November, 2013, the roof of the Zolitude Shopping Center in Riga, Latvia,
collapsed without warning, trapping almost 100 staff and customers within. The disaster - which
was the worst to take place in Latvia in almost 60 years - would change the country forever,
with consequences that reached all the way up to the highest ranks of government.
Construction of the Zolitude Shopping Center was completed in 2011. Before it
even opened to the public it was hailed as a success, winning a Building Of The Year award.
The mall was of a bold glass and concrete design, with a flat roof and a large windowed facade.
Much of it was occupied by a Maxima supermarket, but there were also many other businesses
including a bank, a beauty salon, and a pet shop. It formed part of a complex of buildings,
some dedicated to business and retail, and some residential. While definitely popular with the
public the shopping center did experience a few issues over the course of its lifespan. A small
fire broke out a few months before it opened and did some damage to the building - damage which
set back construction works, but which was quickly repaired. Later on as tenants moved
in and began doing business in the mall workers noted that the fire alarm sounded frequently - an
annoying malfunction which was thought to be down to the alarm system reacting to dust in the air.
Later still workers came in one day to find their locker room completely flooded,
and were told by maintenance workers that the foundations of the building required repairs.
Despite these issues the Zolitude Shopping Center was looking to improve and expand.
At the beginning of 2013 plans were made to install a rooftop garden. This would consist of
a thin layer of topsoil covered with turf and landscaped with cobbled paths and plant beds.
It would be a pleasant spot for shoppers and residents of the adjoining apartment complex to
take a stroll during the day. At the same time as work on the garden was taking place the mall was
also installing an underground parking garage. The two simultaneous projects meant that many builders
were constantly coming and going, and that fire alarms were frequent as dust from the works
tricked the faulty alarm sensors. As annoying as all this might have been though it wasn't
thought of as being any cause for concern - at least not until the 21st of November, 2013.
At 4:21pm on the day of the collapse a fire alarm sounded throughout the shopping center.
By this stage, having gone through so many false alarms before, staff weren't overly concerned.
Many of the smaller shops evacuated and shut their doors but staff in the Maxima supermarket
were relaxed enough about the alarm that many customers didn't feel compelled to leave.
Mall security looked for danger using the CCTV system and, finding none,
declared the situation a false alarm - just as they had many times before.
This fire alarm probably had no connection to what happened next - it was simply a routine false
alarm that came at a fortuitous time. Some of the people who evacuated when the alarm sounded were
still outside the building when, an hour later, the roof suddenly buckled and collapsed inwards.
The collapse began over the checkout counters in the Maxima supermarket and was large enough to
completely obliterate several produce aisles as well. In the space of just a few moments
a huge quantity of concrete and steel crashed down, injuring and trapping almost 100 people.
The rescue effort began immediately, with firefighters and paramedics flocking to
the scene. Many people from other parts of the mall were able to evacuate themselves
while rescuers worked together to locate and extricate 20 lucky survivors from the rubble.
With the damaged building deemed safe to work within they began digging further down through
the debris to reach those trapped below. At 7:04pm a secondary collapse occurred. Another
huge section of the roof fell without warning directly onto the firefighters working below,
many of whom now became casualties in need of rescue themselves. To complicate matters further,
the rescue operation could now no longer proceed as quickly as it had before. Now that it was clear
that the building was unstable only a small number of firefighters were allowed into the
danger zone at any one time, and were then only permitted to work there for short periods of time.
Great efforts were made to pinpoint the likely location of casualties.
Search and rescue dogs were brought in but were unable to help as the wreckage was permeated with
the scent of spilled supermarket produce. The powerful scent of hundreds of broken bottles of
alcohol and spilled containers of bleach obscured the scent of buried victims. Similarly equipment
designed to detect body heat was of no use as the rubble was simply too thick for it to penetrate.
In the end rescuers relied on listening for the sound of mobile phones within the rubble,
and later to examining recovered CCTV footage to pinpoint exactly where shoppers and staff had been
when the collapse took place. Though help was offered by neighbouring countries it was turned
down. Latvian authorities were sure that they had enough manpower to deal with the crisis.
After several days of near constant work the rescue effort was called off on the 25th of
November. This left the final death toll at 54, including three firefighters killed in
the secondary collapse. A further 41 people were injured in the incident, but went on to survive.
In the aftermath of the disaster many different things were put forward as possible causes.
Many suspected that the roof garden with its heavy layer of topsoil put too much strain on the roof.
Others posited that the fire which had taken place just before the shopping center opened to the
public had weakened the structure of the building. The faulty fire alarm was also raised as an issue.
This was something that should have been addressed promptly, rather than left until false alarms
became routine. Were the alarms reacting to dust from the crumbling roof? Would an investigation
into the faulty alarm system have given advance warning of the structural failure? And,
if staff had not been so inured to the constant fire alarms, would more people have been outside
rather than inside when the building fell? While these factors were all important parts of the
incident, the root cause was something much more fundamental: examination of the wreckage
showed significant signs of metal fatigue - fatigue which had been slowly worsening for years.
It seemed that from the moment it was built the Zolitude shopping center was doomed to fall,
with the only real question being when that collapse would happen. The problem,
essentially, was poor design and construction. In several spots loads had been miscalculated,
leading to support structures that just weren't strong enough to bear the weight of the roof.
This overloading was what had caused the slowly worsening metal fatigue. Additionally,
where the design had called for several long steel beams these had been replaced by shorter beams
bolted together. This change in design - which had been made without notifying or seeking
approval from authorities - created a weak spot where an initial structural failure could begin.
And this was exactly what had happened. When the roof gave way it did so where these beams
were bolted together. Once the collapse had begun the extreme metal fatigue throughout the building
brought down the rest of the roof. Who was to blame for these issues was a difficult question.
The architects blamed the company which manufactured the steel beams.
The company which manufactured the beams blamed the company which manufactured the bolts.
The company which manufactured the bolts blamed the architects for using the bolts incorrectly.
Ultimately responsibility fell on the building's civil engineer for the
errors he had made in his calculations. Ivars Sergets was sentenced to six years in prison
for his role in the disaster, while all others involved were acquitted.
The fallout from the collapse didn't end there, though.
While Sergets had made mistakes, there should have been mechanisms in place to catch these errors.
One reason why there were no safety nets of this kind was that during the global financial crisis a
few years before state inspection of buildings had been eliminated in order to cut costs. As such,
when the Zolitude center was constructed regulation and inspection was minimal. Yhe
opportunity to catch errors and question design decisions was missed completely.
In a turn of events that is relatively rare following a disaster,
senior government ministers accepted responsibility for allowing regulation to lapse.
The prime minister of Latvia resigned and a change of government took place.
A complete overhaul of the way in which the construction industry was regulated quickly
followed. The site of the collapse was eventually cleared and set aside for a memorial to those who
lost their lives. A national day of mourning was declared on the 24th of November each year,
and the incident is still very present in the minds of Latvian citizens.
It demonstrates the harm that can arise from a lack of care, from a deferral of responsibility,
from faulty bolts and inadequate beams - small things, on the surface,
but of consequence enough to change lives, destroy buildings, and bring down a government.