Moscow - At least 64 people were killed
by a fire which engulfed a busy shopping mall in the Siberian
city of Kemerovo, Russian investigators said on Monday, and some
of the dead were children.
The fire, one of the deadliest in Russia since the break-up
of the Soviet Union, swept through the upper floors of the
"Winter Cherry" shopping centre on Sunday afternoon where a
cinema complex and children's play area were located.
Emergency services said they had extinguished the blaze, but
later said it had reignited, and that rescuers were struggling
to reach the building's upper floors because the roof had
collapsed. TV footage on Monday showed thick black smoke rising
from the yellow building.
It was unclear if any people were still unaccounted for, but
11 people were being treated in hospital, including an
11-year-old boy who was in a serious condition.
Earlier on Monday, people had posted appeals on social media
seeking news of their relatives or friends, and authorities set
up a centre in a school near the mall to deal with inquiries.
Anna Kuznetsova, Russia's children's rights commissioner,
said the fire had been caused by incompetence and warned there
were many similar shopping centres.
"Other regions, the bosses of other malls must right now,
without waiting for (routine) checks, ask themselves: Have we
done everything we can to ensure something like this doesn't
happen here," Kuznetsova said in a statement.
The shopping mall, a former cake factory, had few windows or
doors.
Witnesses were quoted by Russian media as saying that the
fire alarm had failed to go off, and that many people had found
themselves trapped because exit doors were locked.
Video footage from inside the mall after the fire broke out
showed a group of people in a smoke-filled staircase trying to
smash a fire exit door, which was jammed.
Russia's Channel One TV station reported that some people
had jumped from upper windows to escape the flames.
State investigators, who have opened a criminal
investigation into the blaze, said four people had been detained
over the fire, including the owners and lessees of outlets
inside the mall. Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles
major crimes, said it was trying to bring in the mall's owner
for questioning.
The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed local official
source as saying the main theory being looked at was that the
fire had been caused by an electrical short circuit.
However, it quoted Vladimir Chernov, the region's deputy
governor, as saying on Sunday that the blaze had started when a
child had set fire to the foam on a trampoline in a play area
using a lighter.
State TV said the mall had opened in 2013.
President Vladimir Putin, elected to a new term last
weekend, spoke by telephone with the governor of the Kemerovo
region and with the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry
whom he dispatched to the scene.
Russia's health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, flew to
Kemerovo, a coal-producing region about 3,600 km (2,200 miles)
east of Moscow, and visited the injured in hospital.
Putin "expressed his deep condolences to the relatives and
loved ones of those who died," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Mourners left flowers near the scene of the blaze.
Other big fires in Russia have often turned out to be the
result of serious violations of fire safety regulations.
In 2009, 156 people were killed in the city of Perm when an
indoor pyrotechnics display at a nightclub went wrong. The owner
of that nightclub was convicted of negligence and sentenced to
almost a decade in prison.