Russia mourns deaths

CINEMA BLAZE: INVESTIGATORS SAY LIKELY CAUSE AN ELECTRICAL FAULT

Flags lowered, entertainment events cancelled for 64 victims – mostly kids.

Russia held a national day of mourning yesterday and buried the first victims of a fire that ravaged a busy shopping centre and killed at least 64 people, most of them children.

Flags were lowered and entertainment events cancelled three days after the devastating blaze on Sunday in the western Siberian city of Kemerovo.

Yesterday thousands of people gathered in Moscow and other cities to mourn the victims and vent their anger at the authorities after children were trapped in a locked cinema as the inferno spread through the mall.

The youngest victim according to an official list published by regional authorities was a two-yearold boy, while at least 19 of the 64 people who perished were under 10. A total of 41 children died in the fire.

After a huge outpouring of grief and criticism on social media, President Vladimir Putin – who was this month re-elected for a fourth term – on Tuesday visited the scene and upbraided officials at a televised meeting.

But many observers said the Kremlin’s reaction was insufficient and belated. “The authorities were late in announcing mourning,” political analyst Abbas Gallyamov told Vedomosti business daily.

Investigators have said the most likely cause of the fire, which broke out on the top floor of the mall, was an electrical fault.

Five people have been detained, including the head of the company that managed the building and the head of the company that services its fire alarms. – AFP

Picture: AFP REMEMBERED. A woman places flowers outside the Russian Embassy in Kiev yesterday, in tribute to the victims of a shopping mall fire in the Siberian coal-mining city of Kemerovo. At least 64 people died.