53 dead, many missing in Siberia shopping mall fire
Moscow, (MILLAT ONLINE):At least 53 people were killed when a fire ravaged a busy shopping centre in an industrial city
in Siberia, with many more reported still missing on Monday, including children.
Images on Russian television showed 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.
“The deaths of 53 people have been confirmed,” a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative
Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said in a statement.
A previous toll put the number of dead at 37 with 69 missing, including 40 children.
The preliminary findings of an inquiry said the fire started around 1100 GMT in one of
the cinema halls and destroyed more than 1,000 square metres (1,200 square yards) of the
centre, news agencies reported.
“The roof collapsed in two theatres in the cinema,” the Investigative Committee
said.
The local office of Russia’s emergency services ministry said the fire broke out
on the third and top floor of the mall, where firefighters were struggling on Monday to clear
the rubble.
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.