Russian couple find road built through their home
Image copyright REN TV Image caption One of the owners of the part-demolished house surveys the damage from the new road
The owners of a house in Russia have returned home from work in a nearby city to find their house partially bulldozed and a new road running through where it had once stood.
Pictures broadcast on REN TV show what’s left of the house sitting next to a rain-glistening new highway in the Zavod Voskresensky district. The TV said that the remaining part of the structure is no longer fit for habitation.
The owners, who do not live in the house permanently, had returned from seasonal work in Nizhny Novgorod to find the scene of devastation. They say that they had not been warned of the impending construction work, and had not received a rouble of compensation for their loss, RIA Novosti reports.
Local authorities initially said that “no-one has demolished the house”, but soon rowed back on that statement after one the owners, Valeria Udalova, appeared at their offices carrying ownership documents. Now they’re saying that there might have been an error on the survey maps prior to work starting on the road.
Demanding 3.6m roubles ($62,000; £48,000) from the local administration in compensation to build a new house, Ms Udalova plans to camp in the middle of the road until the dispute is revolved, the Lenta news site says.
Their claims are being investigated by local officials, who will make a decision within a week.
Last week, Russian state TV reported on a group of grandmothers being hailed as heroes after carrying out repairs on the potholed road through their village after local authorities refused to do the work.
Image copyright REN TV Image caption Plans of the new road at the local administration offices show it passing over the house
Reporting by Yaroslava Kiryukhina
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