DHAKA: Latvia’s PM Valdis Dombrovskis has announced his resignation, and thereby the fall of his government, over the deadly collapse of a Riga supermarket.

He made the announcement at a meeting with president Andris Berzins.

‘Considering the tragedy and all related circumstances... a new government is needed that has the clear support of parliament,’ Dombrovskis told reporters, according to the BBC.

At least 54 people died when the supermarket collapsed last Thursday.

President Berzins earlier described the disaster at the Maxima store as ‘murder’ and called for foreign experts to investigate what had happened.

The prime minister’s spokesman told media on Wednesday that ‘the government takes political responsibility for the tragedy’.

Dombrovskis met the president for an hour and a half, during which Berzins appears to have called on him to take responsibility for what happened, the Baltic news agency Delfi reports.

‘I call on all who look to the future to assess their responsibility and act accordingly,’ the president was quoted by the agency as saying.

The collapse was the biggest loss of life since Latvia became independent from the USSR in 1991.

BDST: 1920 HRS, NOV 27, 2013