A verdict has been handed down in the case of deaths in Moscow sewers

The culprit of the tragedy was sentenced to forced labor

The Lublinsky Court of Moscow convicted the director of the AquaTrade company, Viktor Lipatov, through whose fault there was a mass death of people in the Moscow sewerage system in August last year. Unlike the recent tragedy in the center of the capital, where 8 participants in an underground excursion died, the victims of that story went underground as part of their duty. True, they were almost worse prepared than the diggers.

As MK reported at the time, the accident occurred on August 7, 2022 on Tikhoretsky Boulevard, near the Moscow trade fair center. Events developed approximately according to the same scenario as the disaster in August of this year in the Neglinka underground river. 13 workers, hired by the contractor AquaTrade, went down into the 5-meter-deep sewer to plaster the walls. The brigade was put together hastily, calling out Momun Muslimdar (translated as humble Muslims) in a special chat. Many of the workers were involved in such an operation for the first time. Perhaps this explains that the work was organized extremely poorly. The plasterers were not familiarized with safety rules, they were not given gas analyzers, and they were not told at all about the specifics of working in the sewer.

In addition, their shift fell on a day off, when the engineer does not monitor the actions of the team. Accordingly, no one submitted an application to the traffic police to stop traffic on the street where access to the sewer was carried out during the work. Because of this, the hatch on the roadway through which workers go down was not fenced off and had to be closed (usually all work in the sewer is carried out with the hatch open). The coincidence of all these factors led to the tragedy. An hour after the team went down, it started to rain. Very quickly, water filled the entire collector. The workers tried to call the driver who brought them, but a weak cellular signal did not allow them to do this. The poor fellows hung on the ladder under the manhole cover, trying to break it down. In the end, they succeeded, but three plasterers were still carried away by a powerful stream. Their bodies were found in the area of ​​the aeration station.

The head of the company was on vacation on the day of the tragedy, but immediately came to Moscow. Throughout the investigation, he actively assisted the investigation and reimbursed all expenses to the families of the victims. This may be why no civil claims were filed during the trial. Lipatov was charged under Article 216 Part 3 of the Criminal Code (“violation of safety rules during work”). The court sentenced him to 1.5 years of forced labor with the withholding of 10% of his earnings to the state.