Rescue workers, despite foul weather, continue search for eighth worker under building rubble at Baikonur

Despite bad weather, a rescue team from the Russian Emergencies Ministry is continuing the search for, and hopes soon to find, the eighth worker under the rubble of the collapsed roof of the vehicle assembly building (VAB) on site 112 of the Baikonur cosmodrome (a Russian cosmodrome on Kazakhstan's territory), Sergei Gorbunov, press-secretary of Rosaviakosmos head, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. According to him, on Tuesday evening this team is planning to leave for Moscow. The debris of the VAB roof and walls inside the building will be cleared up by cosmodrome servicemen. A government commission headed by Russia's Minister of Industry, Science and Technology Ilya Klebanov, which arrived at the cosmodrome on Monday, is examining specialists' findings to establish the causes of the collapse. According to another source in Rosaviakosmos, specialists deny the possibility of an explosion or a terrorist attack. But they do not rule out a version according to which compressed air tanks inside the VAB could have been hit by falling fragments of walls or the roof. The resultant excessive pressure inside the building could have "shifted the roof and caused it to collapse together with wall fragments." "This is only one of the leads and needs confirmation," the Rosaviakosmos spokesman added. The government commission is planning to complete its work this week.