The explosion of an eleven-story skyscraper in Gdańsk in 1995 shocked Poland. For several days, firefighters searched the rubble for survivors, finding mostly dead bodies. It quickly became apparent that the explosion was not an accident. But who was responsible for it then?
On Easter Monday, at dawn, several residents of the block at Wojska Polskiego 39 in Gdańsk were already on their feet. The gas smell in the stairwell alarmed them. One of the tenants called the gas emergency - it was 5:49. A minute later there was an explosion.
The firefighters who reached the scene first on April 17, 1995, could not believe their eyes. They were summoned to explode in an eleven-story block of flats. Meanwhile, the building in front of them was only eight stories tall . The two lowest ones were literally pushed into the ground, the third one was on the ground floor level.
Post-disaster landscape
The rescue operation began a few minutes after six, when the gas supply to the skyscraper was cut off. As Joanna and Rafał Pasztelański describe in the book “Firefighters. Where heroism begins ":
Some inhabitants of the collapsed block leave it on their own. Through the windows, through the balconies. (...) A man calls out "mom" all the time. Another is holding an ear. Someone is looking for a cat, someone else is whistling at the dog, ignoring the pieces of glass sticking out of the hand .
Risking their lives, the firefighters searched the rubble (still from the TVP documentary series "Czarny serial", dir. Ewa-Anna Schidlik).
Firemen took out the rest from the rubble. They were looking for survivors, but every now and then came another corpse - some horribly mutilated, charred, and without limbs. Not all of them could be identified at once.
A total of 23 people died in the crash, including one as a result of shock, the day after the explosion. 12 were injured. Material losses were estimated at PLN 120 million.
Find the culprits
At the beginning of the investigation, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office in Gdańsk considered two scenarios. According to the first of them, the cause of the explosion could have been the theft of a gas system valve by an unidentified scrap collector. However, the allegedly taken item did not appear at any collection point.
The competing explanation was based on the assumption that it was one of the inhabitants who attacked . Proof? “(…) Two drainage plugs found in the rubble. They did not fall off the installation by themselves. Someone had to unscrew them. Someone who either managed to leave the building on time or died with the others, write the authors of the book Firefighters. Where heroism begins. ”
The curiosity is based on the book Firefighters. Where Heroism Begins, published by Mark Horizon.
In 2016, a third theory appeared. Historian Sławomir Cenckiewicz blamed the Office of State Protection for the disaster. In his opinion, the explosion was caused by a poorly conducted secret action by the UOP, which wanted to destroy documents allegedly kept by one of the tenants, a former SB officer.
However, the sensational reports about the simulation of the accident by the UOP were ultimately considered unreliable and were not subject to investigation. Who, then, was responsible for the death of 23 inhabitants of Gdańsk?
Victims of greed
Joanna and Rafał Pasztelański quote in their book the words of the spokeswoman of the District Prosecutor's Office in Gdańsk, Grażyna Wawryniuk:"The collected evidence clearly showed that the gas installation was unsealed by Jerzy S. Probably his purpose was to destroy the apartment and to obtain insurance for it."
This version was confirmed by the testimonies of the survivors. According to the neighbors, the man was at odds with most of the tenants of the unfortunate skyscraper and the management of the cooperative. He also threatened to blow up the block.
A new building was erected in the place of the unfortunate skyscraper. On its wall there is a plaque commemorating the victims of the blast.
Several days before the catastrophe, he heard sounds of hammering and drilling of walls from his apartment. Before that, he took all his things to his daughter. In January 1995, insured his flat with two insurance companies for the total amount of PLN 40,000.
He probably did not expect the high price he would pay for trying to get rich at the insurers' expense. Justice overtook him immediately - he was one of those killed in the explosion. It's just a pity that he had 22 innocent victims with him.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- J. and R. Pasztelański, Firefighters. Where heroism begins, Znak Horyzont 2018.