A tragedy hidden but not forgotten. 50 years of the Jelgava explosion – Society and politics – News

January 12, 1969, at 10:55 am In the morning, a gas explosion completely destroys one of the stairs of the ninth house of Raina Street and, in part, the apartments of the second staircase.

39 people died instantly. Among them, 14 children. Two other people died later in the hospital.

Juris Pudelis shows the 1995 newspaper to LTV News Service correspondent. This is the moment when the news of the tragedy finally reaches the press. Not found in the newspapers or press releases of 1969.

"It was Sunday.The day after school, the school came back," recalls Juris. "I was reading in the same room, the parents were in the kitchen and preparing lunch.The elder brother Peter and the youngest – John – were in the other rooms.The explosion was not terrible. No, there was a sunny winter day, minus 15 degrees and that dust, and you realize something unimaginable has happened. "

The other two rooms were only a cloud of dust.

"The brothers were in the rooms that collapsed."

Daddy went out into the street dressed in his clothes, without a coat or hat. Juris followed him with his mother. "Even in the kitchen, the window was not flipped.The staircase could go away," says Juris in a calm voice. "At that time, I was 12 years old. I was a child, a boy, but for me, it's the deadline for the end of my childhood. 50 years have pbaded and now I can talk about it. It was mostly for parents … it was a huge hit.

"I found my brothers the next day," says Juris Poodle.

The two zigzags of the brown photo album are all that now farewell to them.

The building supervisor, the current builder retired Valdis Abolins, was living in the same building. If the blast happened later, the victims would be far fewer, Clover said.

"Half of the house, all of whom have children, just went to the gym near the Christmas tree of the Academy.So they had been away," he adds.

The building hit by the explosion was built only two years ago, in 1967. One of the first buildings was connected to a new fuel: gas. At that time, gasification had just started in Jelgava, but in Latvia, and mistakes were made.

Then it turned out that the gas was also accumulated in other cellars and in the adjacent cinema "Zemgale". "There was also a cellar inside, and imagine there was an explosion there during the movie," Clover said. "There were a hundred people there, and all the wells were dug."

The families of the victims received apartments in Sudrabu Edžus Street. The building has been renovated. A year and a half after the tragedy, in the summer of the same year, the case was heard by the court. The master and chief engineer of the operating board of the Jelgava gas farm has been recognized as a criminal. The first was sentenced to two years imprisonment, the second to repairs at his workplace, with 10% of his salary withheld for one year.