Days of mourning in Latvia: to my international friends and colleagues

As you have already probably heard we've had a terrible accident in Riga this Thursday - a roof of a supermarket collapsed in the prime time of Thursday. The shop was full of people who, like most of us usually do, simply went to the store to buy something for the evening. A lot of them went to the shop to buy a thing for their children... At one point the roof of the building collapsed burying  the people under a layer of concrete, metal constructions sand and brick. After the first collapse of the roof firemen arrived, but then the remainder part of the roof collapsed... I won't go here into details - we've got a lot of international media coverage on this event... unfortunately this time the reason is this gloomy. By the afternoon of Saturday 52 people are dead, 10 still missing, a dozens of people with different injuries are in the hospitals. 3 firemen are have been killed after trying to save the people which were buried under the ruins of the first roof collapse, unfortunately the 1st collapse was followed by another one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25058017 (english)
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/riga-baumaterial-koennte-supermarktunglueck-verursacht-haben-a-935228.html (german)

There are already a lot of speculations ongoing on the causes of the accident, but at this point I personally don't feel that the causes are important at this stage. I'm not ready to elaborate on potential causes, although they are more or less obvious. The point I'm trying to raise here - the first action is the prayers for the people that are gone. Three days of mourning have been declared in Latvia. Those people who are not directly involved in the tragedy are starting a donation campaign for the families of the victims. Of course, some kind of compensations will be brought to the victims when the causes will be determined, but who knows when will that happen. A lot of families are broken apart, children are left without their parents. That is certainly the biggest single tragedy in the 23 years of independent Latvia.

By 15:40 of November 23 almost 200k Lats have been raised, but I hope that with a little help from you we can raise this figure higher a bit higher. Please, don't buy me any Christmas presents or send me a card, simply donate as much as you feel you can do - every little donation counts. This is really an extraordinary tragedy for Latvia, Riga. Everyone in town knows at least one person which is affected by this tragedy. Of course, money won't bring back the people that are gone, but there should be some compassion to the children who lost their fathers and mothers.

Here's a link, where you can make a donation to the victims of the tragedy:

http://www.ziedot.lv/en/project/1762


Komentāri

Šī emuāra populārākās ziņas

Iceland in winter – why not? Travel guide for those who travel on a budget. PART 2

Kazeņu ievārījums - ziemas kārums

Komo ezers un Lugano