90-people apartment house nearly collapses in Uralsk

Residents of one of the houses in Uralsk have been urgently evacuated, because the building became unstable. This emergency was caused by construction works in the shop located on the first floor of the house. The shop owner decided to improve her show window and enlarged the window openings. Then,  during replacement of the window frames, the second floor slabs caved in on the first floor windows and sprung a crack stretching to the top of the house.

"We were replacing the old windows with new plastic ones, everything was almost ready, and we started foaming around the windows, when suddenly everything collapsed," the construction workers told the police.

“Engineers have to inspect the arrangement of the bearing walls, the danger is serious, cracks are already up to the third floor. The house might collapse at any moment," officer of the Uralsk Emergency Department Rustam Nizamov said.
The danger is also exacerbated by the age of the house, which was built in 1961. Both electricity and gas have been shut down.

To prevent looting, a cordon was put around the house. A whole stretch of the road was cordoned off as well. 

Ninety people reside in the building. However, only the residents of one communal entrance hallway housed directly over the shop were evacuated. The rest of the residents of the house remain in the building.

"Most importantly, all the people were evacuated in time and there are no victims and no injuries," head of disaster management at the Uralsk department Talgat Yedilbayev said.