The head of the commission, Sergei Ambartsumyan, deputy head of the Moscow Development and Reconstruction Policy, said that specialists from the Kucherenko Central Research Institute of Building Structures have made a full-scale instrumental study. They have said that the error consisted in a wrong choice of the calculation scheme of the structure including the weight of snow along the entire span. Nor has the uneven load of snow been taken into account: it may affect a half or a quarter of the span. It has been precisely the case: owing to the unequal load of snow, when it was more than the supports' carrying capacity, one row of the supports collapsed. In addition, their diameter has not been large enough to bear the load.
Ambartsumyan stressed that the institute has already prepared technical solutions to strengthen the carrying structures for the ensurance of safety of the roofs above all the Metro trade centres.
The Metro trade centre roof above the parking lot on the Dmitrovski Shosse collapsed on February 28. Eight persons have turned for medical help, three of them have been hospitalised.
