Investigative Committee: mall fire in Kemerovo kills 53

Published March 26, 2018 at 9:27 am

This handout picture released by The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry on March 25, 2018, shows emergency vehicles as they gather outside a burning shopping centre in Kemerovo.Five people including a child have died and another 30 were wounded in a major fire in a Siberian shopping centre, Russia's Investigative Committee said. "Three women, a child and a man have been killed" and 30 people hospitalised following the blaze in the Winter Cherry shopping centre in Kemerovo, an industrial city in central Siberia, it said in a statement.

Photo by AFP

The death toll from the fire in the shopping mall Zimnyaya Vishnya in Kemerovo has reached 53, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko told Interfax on March 26.

“The bodies of 14 people have been found in the search and rescue operation in the shopping mall in Kemerovo. Thus, the deaths of 53 people have now been confirmed,” Petrenko said.

A source in the operative headquarters on the site told Interfax at least 55 people have been hurt in the fire.

The fire in the shopping mall Zimnyaya Vishnya began on March 25. The operative headquarters said on March 26 open flames had been extinguished.

Twelve victims are hospitalized in Kemerovo and another 36 people are treated as outpatients. More than ten people are now missing.