World

Third Victim Found In Moscow Tower Fire

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 27, 2000 / 3:42 PM EDT / CBS

Russian rescuers on Tuesday identified a third victim in the fire. Officials are due to re-enter the building later on Tuesday to assess the damage.

Rescue workers pulled the third body out of an elevator that had crashed into the waterlogged basement of the 1772-foot landmark tower, an Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman said. Two others had been found there late on Monday.

It was not clear whether that would be the final death toll: firefighters had earlier said up to four people were missing. The elevator cabin where the bodies were found was crushed under a counterweight, making it difficult to recover the bodies.

Two of the three people confirmed killed were civilian employees at the tower -- a plumber and an elevator operator -- apparently pressed into assisting firefighters long after the tower had been evacuated. The third was a senior firefighter.

Officials have acknowledged that using the elevator after the fire broke out was a violation of normal procedure, but they seem to have had no other means to lift equipment and men hundreds of meters into the sky to battle the blaze.

A safety perimeter around the tower was kept in place until investigators could ensure there was no danger it would collapse. There have been reports that the heat from the blaze could have damaged the wire skeleton that holds up the tower.

Information Minister Mikhail Lesin has vowed to restore television broadcasts in the capital within a week, but has not said how this will be done.

Officials have said they may use the incident as an opportunity to modernize broadcasting in the city, replacing the system of centralized radio-frequency broadcasts with microwave-distributed cable television.

But such an upgrade would take months and cost millions.

Russians are hard-core television addicts, spending more than 20 hours a week in front of sets watching mostly news programs, grisly true-crime cop shows and dubbed Latin American soap operas.

Advertising agencies said they stand to lose millions, and the popular daily Moskovsky Komsomolets warned of a wave of violent crime if broadcasts do not resume quickly.

"The absence of such an irresistible narcotic as television will certainly cause a rise in the sort of senseless crimes usually carried out when there is nothing else to do," it said.

"Boredom sets it. So you rob a bystander, knife the neighbor or bash in the windows of a nearby shop."

Thirty years ago, the Ostankino tower was built to celebrate Soviet pride -- and symbolize Cold War rivalry, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth. It was taller than the Empire State Building.

In the old Soviet Union, the tower was a hallmark of national achievement. Suddenly now, it's a symbol of the country's troubles -- another example of what's going wrong in Russia.

President Putin called it an emergency highlighting the condition of the whole nation's vital facilities.

"This latest accident sows the shape of our vital installations and the overall state of our country," Putin said.

Russians hardly needed the reminder.

From the recent Kursk submarine disaster that cost 118 sailors' lives to high-tech trouble in space to the down-to-earth drudgery of crumbling streets and cracked buildings, Russia is badly in need of repair.

By the time they declared the fire under control on Monday, authorities weren't sure if the tower might fall or if it might have to be torn down.

It'll depend on the judgement of experts from one of the government's busiest departments: the Russian Ministry of Emergencies.

"We should not fail to see major problems in the country behind this accident, and we should not forget the economy. Whether or not such accidents happen again in the future will depend on how we work in this vital direction," Putin said.

The fire started after a short-circuit in wiring belonging to a paging company. Visitors were quickly evacuated from the tower's restaurant and observation deck, which were engulfed several hours later as the fire moved down the structure.

Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo said authorities considered it unlikely that the fire was set intentionally in the tower, which has become increasingly packed with equipment in recent years.

Prosecutors opened an investigation Monday into whether criminal negligence was responsible for the fire, the Interfax news agency reported.

But a Chechen rebel website, Kavkaz.org, said guerrillas had claimed responsibility for the television tower fire, but Russian officials say they do not suspect sabotage.