Fire kills 56, and children still missing
Russians jump from mall blaze
MOSCOW: Dozens of children are missing and feared dead after 56 people died when a fire sparked at a trampoline park engulfed a Siberian shopping centre.
Scores are dead from the blaze that broke out early yesterday at the ‘‘Winter Cherry’’ building in Kemerovo, Siberia.
Adults and children were seen jumping from windows from several storeys up or throwing themselves down escalators as they desperately tried to escape the flames, the Daily Mail reported.
Thirteen bodies had been found in one of the movie theatres, said Vladimir Chernov, the region’s first deputy governor.
The fire was believed to have started in a foamfilled play area inside the building that ‘‘went up like gunpowder’’.
Pictures emerged of the missing children with little hope that any will be found alive in the carnage of the shopping centre as firefighters struggled to reach the worsthit areas.
A video showed the panic at the start of the tragedy with parents screaming for their children and others shouting: ‘‘Fire, fire’’. Another highlighted fire doors locked and people unable to escape.
An 11yearold boy Sergei Moskalenko is in a coma after jumping from a blazing window — a fall seen on video as he hit an awning — and it was confirmed yesterday his parents had died in the fire.
The fire was still burning yesterday and the structure was in danger of collapse, preventing rescuers and firefighters reaching a badly hit cinema where many children had been watching a film.
One girl, Maria Moroz (13) messaged from the cinema: ‘‘We are on fire . . .’’.
A relative replied then she said: ‘‘Looks like this is farewell from me.’’
She was feared dead.
Among the missing are eight girls from one class in Treschevsky village, all of them 11 or 12 years old, named as: Viktoria Pochankina, Veronika Ponushkova, Elena Chernikova, Tatiana Kurchevskaya, Sergey Maneshkin, Viktoria Zipunova, Anastasia Smirnova, Diana Nizovskaya.
In a heartrending final phone call Viktoria ‘Vika’ Pochankina told her aunt: ‘‘Everything is burning.
‘‘The doors are blocked. I can’t go out, I can’t breathe.’’
Her aunt Evgenia said: ‘‘I told her: ‘Vika, take off your clothes, cover your nose’’.
She told me: ‘‘Auntie, tell all my family I love them. Tell mum that I loved her . . .’’
The call cut out.
Owner of the shopping mall Nadezhda Suddenok was detained for questioning, and the official in charge of fire safety and a senior manager were also held.
Local governor Aman Tuleev said he had lost an 11yearold in the fire.
‘‘I feel it very close, because my very close relative died there, a girl,’’ he said. — Agencies