Honoring the victims
President leads tributes to fire victims, offers condolences
A makeshift memorial for the 64 victims of a shopping mall fire in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on Monday is erected in Moscow. At least 41 of the victims were children, and dozens more people are missing.
We are ... losing so many people. Because of what? Because of some criminal negligence and slovenliness.” Vladimir Putin, Russian president
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday blamed the mall fire that killed at least 64 people in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on “criminal negligence” as he visited the site two days after the tragedy.
At least 64 people, including 41 children, died when a blaze raged through the busy shopping center in the industrial city on Sunday, one of the deadliest fires recorded in Russia over the past century. Investigators said fire exits at the mall had been illegally blocked and the fire alarm system had not functioned properly.
Putin flew to Kemerovo on Tuesday. He offered his condolences to the families and friends of the victims, starting the meeting with a moment of silence.
“What is happening here? These are not armed hostilities. This is not an unexpected release of methane. People, children came to relax,” Putin told officials in Kemerovo after laying flowers at a makeshift memorial of flowers, stuffed children’s toys and balloons near the gutted mall’s facade.
“We are talking about demographics but are losing so many people. Because of what? Because of some criminal negligence and slovenliflags ness,” Putin said in comments released by the Kremlin.
“The first feelings when they speak about the number of victims and the number of dead children, ... one feels like wailing — not crying,” Putin said in televised remarks.
It was unclear whether any people were still unaccounted for.
Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said from the scene that 13 people were in hospital, including an 11-yearold boy in a serious condition. Russian media said the boy had leapt from a window and that both his parents had been killed.
Many of the victims will only be identifiable by DNA testing, officials said.
An unofficial list of those missing circulating on Russian media included more than 20 children, some as young as five.
Mobile phone messages sent from one of those on the list, 13-year-old Maria Moroz, and published by Russian media, said: “We are burning. I love you all. This is perhaps farewell.”
The Kemerovo region declared three days of mourning beginning on Tuesday, with the state flags of the Russian Federation and the of the region being lowered across the Kemerovo region.
All institutions, organizations and TV and radio companies are recommended to cancel recreational activities, the regional administration said in a statement.
But many critics said national television channels did not pull entertainment programs from their schedule fast enough.
Some Muscovites held a vigil in the city center on Tuesday evening and several Russian cities declared a period of mourning in solidarity with Kemerovo.
Investigators and witnesses said many people — including children — were burned alive because emergency exits were locked, notably at a multiplex cinema where children were watching cartoons.
The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said the fire alarm system in the mall had been out of order since March 19 and a security guard had not turned on the public address system to warn people to evacuate the building.
The committee said earlier it was trying to bring in the mall’s owner for questioning.
It said a criminal probe has been opened and that five people have been arrested, including an official of the mall’s security firm who is suspected of deactivating the public address system when the fire broke out.