MOSCOW — At least 64 people, many of whom are believed to be children, perished in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on Sunday as a massive fire swept through a crowded shopping center.
Even while flames are still licking parts of the huge building, some 40 people were treated on site and at least 10 others hospitalized, according to Russia’s Ministry of Health. Emergency services have said that 64 is the final toll, but local media have reported there could still be dozens missing. There are also bodies that will require genetic testing to identify.
Kemerovo is nearly 2,000 miles east of Moscow. Sunday was the first day of a week-long school holiday in Russia. On social media, friends and family shared photos of children believed to have been at the mall when the fire broke out. Other videos show men attempting to break through a locked door in a stairwell to escape encroaching flames.
One of the hospitalized victims is an 11-year-old boy who jumped out of a fourth-floor window to escape the fire. He was described by authorities on Monday as being in serious physical and emotional condition. “He lost his parents and younger sister in this tragedy,” Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said, adding that he had several broken bones and is on a respirator.
The Kommersant newspaper reported that 288 firefighters arrived with 62 firetrucks to battle the blaze, which took 19 hours to extinguish and covered an area of 1,500 square meters. The roof over the burned area collapsed and at least 59 people are reported by the RBC news outlet as missing — 41 of them children.
Around 12 of the missing children were in one of the mall’s three movie theaters, which rescuers have so far been unable to access due to the high temperatures and building instability, according to Kemerovo Vice-Governor Vladimir Chernov. The cinema is located next to a children’s play area on the fourth floor, which is believed to be the epicenter of the fire
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined by authorities, but it underscores an appalling record of fire safety in Russia in recent years. According to Russian news outlets, a criminal investigation has been opened for possible negligence and violation of fire safety requirements.
Four people have been detained for questioning, including a tenant from the area in the shopping center where the fire is believed to have begun, as well as the head of the mall’s management company.
Chernov added that the fire safety situation at the Winter Cherry Mall resembles those of other shopping centers in the region, where authorities will now conduct safety checks.
The head of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry, Vladimir Puchkov, said that rescuers struggled to contain and extinguish the fire as parts of the building began to destabilize. He described thick clouds of smoke and limited visibility as temperatures within the mall reached 700 degrees Celsius, the RBC news outlet reported.
Chernov said that the working theory behind the fire is that a child may have lit a foam ball in the play area with a cigarette lighter. Other theories forwarded in the Russian press suggest that faulty electrical wiring may have ignited the blaze. There have been reports that the building’s fire alarms did not sound, leaving those in the movie theater initially unaware of the situation.
The fire raged for hours before firefighters could reach the fourth floor. In addition to theaters and a children’s area, the fourth floor of the mall featured a large petting zoo. All the animals are reported to have died.
The fire in Kemerovo is far from the first major fire disaster in Russia in recent years. In 2003, a fire in student dorm at a Moscow university killed 44 and injured 156. A 2007 nursing home fire in Krasnodar saw 63 die, and a 2009 nightclub fire in Perm killed 153. In 2015, a fire at a mall in Kazan took the lives of 19 people and injured 61.
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