SIBERIAN INFERNO
SHOPPING CENTRE BLAZE CLAIMS LIVES
AT LEAST 37 people have died after fire ripped through a Siberian shopping centre, with scores more reported missing, including many children.
Hundreds of firefighters were deployed to fight the blaze at the Winter Centre in the city of Kemerovo, which also houses a sauna, multiplex cinema and bowling alley, and is believed to have been packed with people.
Russian state news agency Tass quoted firefighters as saying that 40 of the missing were children. An additional 43 people were reportedly injured in the blaze.
There has been no immediate information on the cause of the fire, which is believed to have started in one of the cinema halls and consumed an area of about 1500sq m.
Reports didn’t say if the vic- tims died from burns or smoke inhalation.
Television pictures showed people jumping from windows of the mall, which was engulfed in black smoke.
“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.
The deadly blaze is being investigated by Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is reporting directly to President Vladimir Putin.