64 DEAD IN SIBERIA MALL INFERNO
Most victims were children trapped in cinemas as doors were locked
ATOTAL of 64 people, many of them children, perished in a fire that ravaged a busy shopping mall in an industrial city in Siberia, officials said yesterday as rescuers searched the charred rubble to recover bodies.
Russian television showed images of thick black smoke pouring out of the roof 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.
Emergency Services Minister Vladimir Puchkov said on local television: “We have recorded that unfortunately as a result of the accident 64 people died.”
He said this was the “final figure”, and included six people still buried under the rubble.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the roof collapsed in two theatres of the cinema in the blaze, which erupted at 4pm local time on Sunday. Witnesses said 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.
Several witnesses said the doors of one of the shopping centre’s cinemas, where children were watching cartoon films, were locked.
“Whole classes of children from nearby villages were there, they were locked in (the cinema),” said a witness named Konstantin.
Alexander Lillevyali, who lost 11year-old twin daughters and a 5year-old daughter in the fire, said his children 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.”
Locals told RBK newspaper that the cinema often locked its doors to stop people going in without tickets.
Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the most seriously injured survivor was an 11year-old boy, who jumped from the top floor to escape the fire, which killed all his family, but there were hopes for his survival.
Yesterday, more than 500 firefighters were struggling to break down walls and clear rubble amid smoke-filled air and high temperatures, deploying drones.
The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal inquiry and four people, including the tenant of the premises where the fire broke out, and the head of the company that manages the mall, had been arrested.