Maintenance worker arrested over gas explosion in Daghestan

A gas utility repair and maintenance service worker from Makhachkala’s Lenin district has been detained as a suspect in the gas explosion case at a high-rise building on Gapsakhskaya Street. The investigation believes that his inaction and failure to fulfill his duties led to the explosion of a gas-air mixture, causing harm to local residents’ health.

The incident occurred on  25 March, injuring four people — three women and one man — one of whom is in serious condition. The explosion damaged 1,000 windows in eight high-rise buildings and caused damage to 50 parked cars.

Following the explosion, Russia’s Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case under Article 238 of the Criminal Code of Russia, concerning services that do not meet the safety requirements for life and health.

The unnamed worker was detained after  an investigation revealed that he failed to conduct the necessary checks on the gas pipes and did not eliminate faults in the system, which led to the accident.

However, there are much bigger questions regarding the existence of the building itself, where the explosion occurred. The chief housing inspector of Daghestan, Sergei Kasyanov, stated following the explosion that the building was illegally connected to the gas network. He also confirmed that the high-rise was illegally constructed.

The Head of Daghestan, Sergei Melikov, confirmed the illegality of the building’s construction after arriving at the scene of the incident. According to him, instead of the nine-storey building approved on paper, a 14-storey building was constructed.

According to the Makhachkala administration, the building was listed in the registry of illegally built houses and was not officially commissioned. The apartment owners received property rights through a ruling from the Lenin District court in 2021. However, apartments in the building continue to be sold: as per listings on the Avito website, prices range from ₽4.8 million ($57,000) for a one-bedroom apartment to up to ₽12 million ($143,000)  for a three-bedroom one.

No representatives of the construction company or officials responsible for preventing illegal construction have been detained so far.

At the same time, according to Melikov, the responsibility for what happened cannot be attributed to just one person.

‘This is a chain of violations, starting with the one who issued the construction permit, ending with the one who accepted the building into operation, and including the one who filed a lawsuit’, Melikov said the day of the explosion.

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