Russian rescuers have retrieved six bodies from under the mass of debris after a hangar roof collapsed at the country's main space launch site on Sunday.
Latest Russian news reports said there was little hope that the other two trapped workers could have survived the accident at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. A construction group of seven Kazakhs and one Belarussian was on the roof of the 80-meter high hangar when it caved in.
Russia, which rents the site from Kazakhstan for its space program, sent a rescue team of 64 people to the site overnight. Searching for other bodies or survivors is continuing.
The hangar, used for assembling Buran and Energia rockets, remained cordoned off Monday because of fears that the walls could collapse, the reports said.
Space officials ruled out terrorism or poor building maintenance as causes of the accident, the Itar-tass news agency said.
Russian Space Agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said it could have been prompted by something falling on one of the massive fuel tanks kept inside the hangar, which would have produced a huge blast causing the roof to collapse.
Gorbunov told the state-run RTR channel that the accident would not hinder Russian rocket development.
However, Interfax news agency quoted sources in Baikonur as saying the accident would have a negative effect on Russia’s commercial space programs.
The sources said the finishing chambers for the Starsem joint venture between Russia and France as well as a work station for the new Soyuz-2 rocket booster were inside the crumbled hangar.
Although preliminary information indicated no damage to the chambers and the workstation, it would be impossible to use them inside the ruined building. This factor "will naturally tell on the near future of Soyuz commercial launches," the source said.
Baikonur was built in the Soviet era when both Russia and Kazakhstan were part of the same country. Its renowned history includes the launchings the world's first satellite in 1957 and the first space traveler, Yuri Gagarin, four years later.
It remains Russia's main commercial rocket launching site and was leased from the Kazakh government after the Soviet union disintegrated in 1991.
(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2002)
