Mass grief
‘One feels like wailing – not crying,’ says Russia president
People hold portraits of relatives as they gather to pay their last respects to the victims of a fire in a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow, on Tuesday. The blaze on Sunday killed 64 people, many of whom were children. Russian officials said fire exits were blocked and an alarm system was turned off in the shopping center, CNN reported
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said “criminal negligence” was to blame for a Siberian mall fire that killed at least 64 people, including 41 children, after they found themselves trapped in the inferno because of locked doors.
A criminal probe has been opened and five people arrested over Sunday’s blaze, which raged through the busy shopping center in the industrial city of Kemerovo in western Siberia.
Two days after the tragedy, Putin visited a makeshift memorial of stuffed toys and flowers in the Kemerovo, saying he felt “like wailing” over the number of victims in one of the deadliest fires recorded in Russia over the past century.
Investigators said the victims and dozens of animals were burned alive or suffocated because emergency exits were locked, notably at a multiplex cinema where children were watching cartoons.
Forty-one children were among the dead, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Tuesday, citing a source in the regional emergency services.
“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 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, slovenliness,” 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,” he said.
Questions have swirled about the Kremlin’s response to the country’s latest man-made disaster.
Critics wondered why the Kremlin did not call a nationwide day of mourning and said national television channels did not pull entertainment programs from their schedule fast enough.
Many on social media questioned the official death toll but officials said the figures were final, urging Russians not to trust unconfirmed reports.