. Earth Science News .
Polish supermarket ordered shut after Chorzow tragedy
WARSAW, Jan 29 (AFP) Jan 30, 2006
Polish building inspectors on Sunday ordered a supermarket to shut down as they stepped up inspections of public buildings following the deadly collapse of an exhibition centre in Chorzow.

The supermarket, in the town of Bytom, a few kilometers (miles) outside Chorzow, was cleared of customers and closed down at around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), after an inspection showed one of its walls to be fissured, Poland's PAP news agency reported.

The shop's roof was then cleared of snow.

Firemen in Bytom said that, although the fissure in the supermarket's wall was not recent, it could still pose a risk to clients.

Polish Interior Minister Ludwik Dorn ordered Sunday that all large public buildings should be inspected and their roofs cleared of snow after the preliminary findings of a probe into the Chorzow tragedy, in which at least 66 people died and 141 were injured, indicated that the roof of the town's exhibition hall probably collapsed under the weight of accumulated snow.

"I have ordered immediate checks of all large buildings, in particular supermarkets and swimming pools, around the country," Dorn told a press conference in Warsaw earlier Sunday.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.