In Summary
A total of 64 people some of them children perished in a fire
that ravaged a busy shopping mall in an industrial city in Siberia, as
rescue teams Monday struggled through piles of charred rubble to
recover bodies.
recover bodies.
Russian television showed
images of thick black smoke pouring out of the Winter Cherry shopping
centre in the city of Kemerovo, which also houses a sauna, a bowling
alley and a multiplex cinema and was packed with people on Sunday
afternoon.
Collapse
Russia's
Investigative Committee said the roof collapsed in two theatres in the
cinema in the blaze which erupted at around 4pm (0900 GMT).
Witnesses
told Russian television that some did not hear alarms or did not take
them seriously and that the fire took hold very quickly, leaving many
children separated from their parents.
"The
alarm system didn't work, people ran out screaming and in panic", said a
teenager, Milena, who had visited the mall with her parents.
Emergency
services minister Vladimir Puchkov said on Russian television: "We have
recorded that unfortunately as a result of the accident 64 people
died", up from a previous toll of 56.
He said "64 is the final figure", and included six people still buried under the rubble.
The
preliminary findings of an inquiry said the fire started in one of the
cinemas and destroyed more than 1,000 square metres (1,200 square yards)
of the centre, news agencies reported.
The
local office of Russia's emergency services ministry said the fire
broke out on the top floor of the four-storey mall, causing floors and
the roof to collapse.
Witnesses
One
witness, Anastasia Klepova, told Rossiya 24 television: "The evacuation
signal only went off twice. We didn't believe in the evacuation at
first, we thought maybe rubbish had caught fire in the toilet."
"We emerged out of darkness and smoke. We were already all black. In two or three minutes, such smoke had risen up."
Witnesses said many children were separated from adults, after coming to enjoy facilities including a trampoline centre.
"People
started running around, it was just awful. There were a lot of
children, children without parents," said witness Klepova.
"There were children and adults, they ran out in T-shirts... we tried to help bring out people," said teenager Danila Plyut.
"The smell of plastic was very strong and the smoke was acrid on the top floor, you just could not go up there by then."
Injured
Health
minister Veronika Skvortsova said at the scene that the most seriously
injured person was an 11-year-old boy who jumped from the top floor to
escape the fire, which killed all his family, but there were hopes for
his survival.
She said an 18-year-old
boy was also seriously injured from jumping from the top floor, while
nine other people were suffering from smoke inhalation.
On
Monday more than 500 firefighters were struggling to break down walls
and clear rubble amid smoke-filled air and high temperatures, deploying
drones.
Russia's Investigative
Committee said it had opened a criminal inquiry and four people,
including the tenant renting the premises where the fire broke out and
the head of the company that manages the mall, had been arrested.
President
Vladimir Putin expressed condolences and ordered the minister of
emergency services to fly to the scene, the Kremlin said.
Around 120 people had been evacuated from the burning centre, rescuers said on Sunday.
"This
shopping centre on several floors was packed with people midday Sunday.
No one knows exactly how many people there were inside when the fire
broke out," Alexander Yeremeyev, an official with the local Russian
emergency services ministry, said in a statement.
SMOKE
"Where
to look for people? How many are there? That has greatly complicated
the work of the firefighters," he said, adding that the thick smoke was
also hindering their task.
Some 300
firefighters and rescue personnel were rushed to the scene and the fire
was brought under control late in the night, local emergency officials
said.
It was the deadliest blaze in Russia in recent years.
A
shopping mall fire in March 2015 killed 11 people in Kazan, the capital
of Tatarstan some 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of Moscow.
In
April 2013, a fire ravaged a psychiatric hospital in the Moscow region,
killing 38 people, most of them patients who were engulfed by flames as
they slept behind barred windows.
Just
months later, in September 2013, 37 people were killed when a fire
swept through a psychiatric hospital in the village of Luka in northwest
Russia.
In 2009, 156 were killed in a
nightclub fire in the city of Perm, 1,200 kilometres east of Moscow in
one of the deadliest accidents in Russia's modern history.
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