MOSCOW - Russian authorities on Monday denounced what they called "flagrant violations" of safety norms that led to the deaths of 64 people, many of them children, in a fire at a busy shopping mall in an industrial city in Siberia.
Investigators and witnesses said emergency exits were locked shut -- notably at a multiplex cinema where children were watching cartoons -- and alarm systems were not working at the Winter Cherry shopping centre in the Siberian city of Kemerovo.
"Investigators have already obtained proof of the flagrant violations that led to such serious consequences," Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.
It said a criminal probe has been opened and that five people were arrested including an official of the mall's security firm who is suspected of deactivating the public address system when the fire broke out.
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.
Russian television showed images of thick black smoke pouring out of the roof of the mall, which was packed with people on Sunday afternoon when the blaze broke out.
"Whole classes of children from nearby villages were there, they were locked in (the cinema)," a witness who gave his name as Konstantin told Business Radio FM.
Alexander Lillevyali, who lost 11-year-old twin daughters and a five-year-old daughter in the fire, told Meduza news site that the girls called him to say they could not open the cinema's door.
"My daughter kept calling me. I just shouted to her to try to and get out of the cinema but I couldn't do anything, there were already flames in front of me," he said.
Locals told RBK newspaper that the cinema often locked its doors to stop people going in without tickets because it was understaffed.
The Investigative Committee said the roof collapsed in two theatres of the cinema in the blaze, which erupted at around four pm (0900 GMT) Sunday.
Witnesses told Russian television that some people 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.
One witness, Anastasia Klepova, told Rossiya 24 television: "The evacuation signal only went off twice. We didn't believe in the evacuation at first."
Another witness told Rossia 24 news channel: "There was no announcement. People just started running towards the exit. Then there was a smell of burning and we began to realise that it wasn't a drill."
In CCTV images shown by the Life TV channel, black smoke is seen quickly engulfing a fleeing crowd.
- 'Children without parents' -
"People started running around, it was just awful. There were a lot of children, children without parents," said witness Klepova.
Emergency Services Minister Vladimir Puchkov said the death toll of 64 was final and included six victims still buried under the rubble.
The local spokesman of the emergency situations ministry, Boris Dediukhin, told the Ria Novosti news agency that at least nine children were among the dead.
Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the most seriously injured survivor 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 after jumping from the top floor, while nine other people were suffering from smoke inhalation.
Crowds of people came to the scene to lay flowers in tribute to the victims of the deadliest blaze in Russia in recent years.
President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences as well as Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, EU President Donald Tusk and the US State Department.
Local authorities have announced three days of mourning in the Siberian region starting Tuesday.
The prosecutor general's office said that all of the country's shopping malls with entertainment areas will be checked for fire safety.
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source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW - 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.
- 'Where to look for people?' -
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," Alexandre Eremeyev, an official with the local Russian emergency services ministry, said in a statement.
"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 around 1730 GMT, local emergency officials said.
Russia's minister of emergency services, Vladimir Putchkov has gone to Kemerovo, RIA Novosti 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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source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW - Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who loves to cultivate a virile man-of-action image, was shown on Russian TV Saturday spear-fishing in a camouflage wetsuit, piloting a powerboat and catching some rays while on a Siberian holiday.
Putin's affinity for the tough guy pose has been documented with shots of him bare-chested on horseback, diving in a submarine in Lake Baikal -- the world's deepest -- and flipping a Judo opponent.
These latest images, provided by the Kremlin, captured his two-day stay in the remote Tuva area of southern Siberia.
Putin "fished in a waterfall near a mountain lake, indulged in underwater fishing, sunbathed, went rafting in mountain rivers, piloted... motor boats, went hiking and four-wheeler riding in the mountains," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The images broadcast on public television, which insisted on "the physical fitness of the president", show Putin catching a pike in a camouflage wetsuit or sunning his bare torso with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is originally from the region.
His trip comes days after Putin said the US would have to cut 755 diplomatic staff in Russia and warned of a prolonged gridlock in its ties after the US Congress backed new sanctions against the Kremlin.
Putin's previous made-for-TV exploits, however, have not been without controversy. During a 2011 dive in the Black Sea he allegedly discovered two 15th century amphoras, but the find was mocked in independent media because the vessels were suspiciously without algae or other sea life.
Peskov admitted several months later that the scene had been staged.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
