No compensation paid to residents of blasted building in Plyakhanau Street

"The apartment is being redecorated, my father goes there from time to time. They put concrete on our wall, and that's it...", - Katsiaryna has told Euroradio.

She has been unable to live in her own apartment in Plyakhanau Street in Minsk for nearly a month. There was a blast in the neighbouring apartment on February 23, a family of two people died. The whole block was evacuated by the authorities then - 67 people moved to the House of veterans, elderly and disabled people, the hotel of the Belarusian State Circus or to their relatives'.

A week after the blast, First Deputy Head of Lenin district administration of Minsk Alyaksandr Darakhovich promised to return the people to their homes by April. Euroradio's interlocutor, however, feels pessimistic about it. She says that their apartment cannot be lived in so far.

"Maybe, residents of the lower floors will get back to their apartments... There's something unreal going on in the block. Everything is black, smoked, wires everywhere. Our apartment stays without gas and electricity. There's even no pipe - we had a common pipe with the apartment where the blast had occurred. They just cut it off." 

I have heard approximately the same from the residents of the lower floors of the house, whose apartments did not suffer in the blast. The people say they have no information about the building's restoration, compensations or even the reasons for the blast. The officials used to come to the apartments together with the investigators, and then just stopped coming.

One of the casualties says that the letter from the district administration with an offer to render material aid to her came to... the employer. By now, the only compensation paid by the authorities is the Br 900 K for pensioners and children.

Even the builders have no idea when the residents of the building damaged by the blast will return home.

"I talked to the builders of the "MAPID" brigade, responsible for the object. Even they cannot tell exactly when we can move back".

The official reasons for the blast in house No. 85 are also kept in secret by the investigation. It is unlikely that we will know them in the nearest weeks. The Investigatory Committee worked on the similar blast which occurred in the village of Malinauka, Lahoisk district, for a whole year.