spacetoday.net: Roof collapses at Baikonur hangar

Posted: Sun, May 12, 2002, 3:45 PM ET (1945 GMT)
As many as eight people are feared dead after a roof of a hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome collapsed early Sunday. Eight people were working on the roof of the 80-meter-high hangar at Baikonur Sunday when the roof collapsed, according to Russian reports; those people are believed to have been killed in the fall. Rescue efforts are underway, but have been hampered by fears that the rest of the structure may be unstable and could collapse. The hangar is said to store components of the mothballed Buran space shuttle, including one orbiter; it's not clear if the orbiter stored there is the one that made the program's only orbital flight in 1988. The hangar was built in the 1960s to support Soviet efforts to launch humans to the Moon.