Sunday's accident sent eight construction workers plunging from a height of 80 meters (260 feet). Russian rescue workers pulled out seven bodies but later called off the search for the eighth, declaring that the building remained too precarious.

All the workers were men, and they left behind 11 children among them. The Baikonur administration gave the families of each victim 50,000 tenge (dlrs 326).

Speakers at Wednesday's memorial lamented the lack of insurance policies for Baikonur workers and the widespread practice of under-the-table employment at the site, the main employer in the remote region.

Russia has leased the Soviet-built space complex since the 1991 Soviet collapse made Kazakhstan an independent country. Russia maintains a big military presence in town bordering it, creating tension with local Kazakhs, and the complex remains tightly closed to outsiders.

Russian space officials have ruled out terrorism and poor building maintenance as causes of the roof collapse. A Kazakh investigator said the roof was either overloaded or pushed on by some outside force, and said he was certain the disaster was not caused by an explosion because the walls of the hangar were still standing.

``We hope that the commission figures out what happened,'' Serik Zhabi, who had relatives among those killed, said at Wednesday's funeral.