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Service Employee Detained After Moscow Woman's Elevator Death

A maintenance worker has been detained in connection with the death of a woman on Jan. 14 in an elevator in northwestern Moscow, the local branch of the Investigative Committee said Friday in an online statement.

The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into the incident — seeking to determine whether service work on the elevator failed to meet safety requirements.

Electrician Alexei Belousov — an employee of the elevator company Lift Garant that had recently performed maintenance work on the elevator — has been detained, the Investigative Committee statement said.

A 36-year-old woman died on Thursday after the floor of an elevator fell into the elevator shaft at the elite Alye Parusa residential complex in northwestern Moscow, the Rosbalt news agency reported.

"The preliminary conclusion is that the elevator's floor was torn out after the lift stopped too sharply on the seventh floor,” a source in Moscow's emergency services told the RIA Novosti news agency.

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