Part of Kiev Post Office Falls; Pedestrians Hurt

Stone columns and balconies over an entrance to Kiev’s main post office collapsed on Wednesday, crushing rush-hour pedestrians in a 15-foot heap of rubble, Soviet television said. The report gave no casualty figure.

The evening news program “Vremya” said the victims were buried in a pile of brown stone on Kiev’s main street, Kreshatik, at about 4:20 p.m.

“At this time, there were particularly many people here. Visitors to the post office, passers-by and people hurrying to the nearby subway station were trapped under the rubble,” the TV report said.

The news program said rescue work had been completed by Wednesday evening but did not give a casualty figure.

Valery Chasny, a resident of Kiev, said in a telephone interview that at least two people were pulled alive from the wreckage. Chasny said firefighters, paratroopers and at least 10 ambulances rushed to the scene.

The city, about 500 miles southwest of Moscow, is the capital of the Ukraine.

The newscast showed tape of soldiers and residents pulling pieces of wreckage off the pile in the search for survivors. One battered survivor was shown being carried away on a stretcher.

The TV pictures showed that the collapse occurred from the top, or 7th floor of the building, as two broad columns leading up the front of the post office and the balconies between them all crashed to the ground.

The building remained standing.

The post office, constructed in the 1950s, had been under repair. The newscast said a construction crew had boarded up the entrance with wood but then delayed repair work.

Heavy rain at the time of the collapse apparently loosened the facade, the news report said. But it added that a commission had been formed to look into the cause of the collapse.

Chasny said a woman was hit by something that fell from the building last winter, but that reconstruction work did not begin until about a month ago.

It was not immediately possible to gain more details of the collapse. Calls to news organizations in Kiev were not answered.