Dozens of children remain
missing feared dead early today after an appalling shopping mall fire in
Russia.
The latest death toll from
the Kemerovo inferno in Siberia is 56 with 47 injured and many still
unaccounted for.
Unconfirmed reports in
Kemerovo said at noon local time (6am UK time) that at least 96 bodies have
been found in the mall, many of them children.
The children were
reportedly burnt alive in a furnace of up to 700C.
One 11-year-old-boy, Sergei
Moskalenko, was in a coma after jumping from a blazing window – a fall seen on
video as he hit an awning – and it was confirmed this morning that his parents
died in the fire.
Men were holding a rug to
break his fall but he hit an awning over a door as he fell around 40 ft.
Despite his crash, he is
expected to survive.
Family pictures show his
mother Olesya, 30, father Evgeny, 35, sister Ksenia, four, missing and presumed
dead in the inferno.
Sergei’s two grandmothers
have contacted the hospital, promising to care for him, say officials.
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 worst-hit 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.
The fire was still burning
this morning – and the structure 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 is feared dead.
Among the missing are eight
girls from one class in Treschevsky village – all 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 breath.’
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 then ended.
Evgenia added: ‘The school
vacations have just begun and almost all their class was there – about 10
people. Two or three parents and a teacher.
‘The teacher left the kids
in the cinema and went with parents in the shopping mall. So all the adults
survived…’
The body of a Kemerovo high
school teacher, Tatiana Darsalia, was the first to be identified.
Staff may have locked
cinema doors before the horrifying inferno spread
There was alarming evidence
today that staff often locked cinema doors to stop gatecrashers getting inside.
Reports also say fire doors
in the complex were locked.
The mall – a converted
Soviet-era confectionary factory – was described as a ‘labyrinth’ with few
windows, one main staircase, one lift shaft and one escalator.
Local MP for Kemerovo Anton
Gorelkin said there were no fire alarms.
Fire doors were locked and
extinguishing systems did not work.
‘This is horrendous,’ said
the MP from pro-Vladimir Putin party United Russia.
‘I find it very hard to
find words to speak about children who were burned alive.
‘Dozens of lives are lost,
and very likely there will be more bodies found.’
He warned: ‘It is
incredibly important to openly speak about what happened, and why.
‘People who are guilty in
this must be punished. I believe that people whose pockets were filling with
millions from this shopping mall knew that one day these money will smell of
blood.
‘Whatever was the reason,
children’s play, or arson, or – this wasn’t something that caused deaths. ‘It
was complete, total absence of working fire alarm and fire extinguishing.
‘Locked fire exits which
turned the shopping mall into a trap.
‘Children that died next to
fire exits.
‘They knew where to run,
they were going in the right direction, but doors were locked.’
A key beneficiary of the
shopping mall in Kemerovo – capital of Russia’s main coal mining region – was
named as emigre billionaire
Denis Shtengelov, the owner
of KDV Group, who now resides in Australia.
She had brought her class
to the shopping mall
Owner of the shopping mall
Nadezhda Suddenok was detained for questioning.
The official in charge of
fire safety and a senior manager were also held.
Local governor, Aman
Tuleev, said he had lost an 11-year-old relative in the fire.
‘I feel it very close,
because my very close relative died there, a girl,’ he said.
A mother, Yulia, was in the
play area of the Winter Cherry mall with her three children and her own mother.
She said: ‘The fire began
on the 4th level, bouncy castles caught fire. It all was happening right in
front of my eyes, I was sitting at the sofa opposite the play zone.
‘The fire was grew within
seconds, smoke covered all around. It was a miracle that we survived.
‘I ran to look for my
children, when I gathered all of them, everything was in smoke.
‘I lost a sight of my
mother… Luckily, I met her downstairs’.
Igor, a boy, said: ‘I was
watching a movie with my seven-year-old sister.
‘Suddenly the door opened
and a woman shouted – fire!
The flames burned for five
hours (left) as people ushered their children away from the fire (right)
‘Clouds of smoke appeared
in a second, I grabbed my sister and we ran downstairs. The crowd was terrible
there, I could see nothing.
‘It took us five minutes to
run out. My hands are still trembling, what if that woman did not come in and
shout…?’
One woman, Ekaterina, said:
‘I was with my husband on the third floor in a furniture shop. Suddenly the
ceiling began to crack, first in one place, then everywhere.
‘We thought it would
collapse on our heads in some seconds. Everyone rushed out including shop
assistants, up to 50 people got in one lift.
‘People were jumping on
each other on the escalator. Men were running ahead of women… and on the ground
floor all were just standing and watching our rush, nobody was in a hurry.
‘Many people got outside
without coats, many were from fitness centre and spa, in flip flops and covered
in towels… Some people looted TV sets.’
One security guard said
lighted candles were on a table in the play area for a celebration moments
before the fire started.
Another said: ‘People were
panicking. The elevators were working.
‘Fire alarm did not work at
all. There was no water, no fire alarm.
‘They came to test it not
long ago, I remember. And I know that lifts should have been blocked, but they
were working, so it was a total failure.
‘All were shouting and
running. I went to rescue the children. I was just grabbing them and taking
[them] out. I don’t know how many, ten, 15, I was just running here and there
while it was possible to breath.’
Russian emergencies
minister Vladimir Puchkov said: ‘Firefighters and rescuers are risking their
lives and health working inside the facility due to its unstable structure and
heavy smoke contamination.
‘There is no access to a
number of areas due to extremely high temperatures.’
His deputy, Vladlen
Aksyonov, said: ‘The floor decks are giving in and there is a threat of them
collapsing.’
The fire is believed to
have started in a foam-filled play area inside the building which ‘went up like
gunpowder’ before igniting a number of bouncy castles.
The carnage is one of the
greatest tragedies in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union 27 years ago.
Initial reports suggested
it was caused by arson, claiming a child had a cigarette lighter inside a foam
pit.
‘The fire started from the
trampoline room’ – a children’s zone in the complex,’ said deputy governor
Vladimir Chernov.
‘The preliminary theory is
that one of the children had a cigarette lighter.
‘The fire started right in
the foamed trampoline pool, which flared up like gunpowder.’
Earlier reports from
officials had failed to make clear the scale of the tragedy.
The fire will come as a
severe blow to Vladimir Putin exactly one week after his landslide election
victory.
He is currently facing a
mounting diplomatic crisis over the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal in
Salisbury as western countries fall into line behind Britain.
Putin has ordered his
emergencies minister Vladimir Puchkov to fly to Kemerovo to take charge of the
disaster.
Firefighters early on
Monday, local time, could still not reach the fourth floor of the gutted mall
because temperatures were ‘too high’.
President Putin sent his
‘heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the victims and wishes
for a speedy recovery to the injured’.
The shopping complex is
also home to a zoo, where all 200 of the animals are expected to have died.
Among them are rabbits,
foxes, deer, wild pigs, goats, ferrets, meerkats, squirrels, hamsters and
tortoises from a zoo inside the complex.
Director of the mall’s pet
zoo, Evgeny Videman, said he expected all his 200 animals had died.
‘I think they were
suffocated and died because I was the last to leave. There were no people left
in the zoo.
‘There was a strong smoke
on the third floor, people were panicking on the side stairs.
‘I just closed the doors.
It was physically impossible to get the animals out. I am a vet and I guess
that the animals are already choked with smoke.’
The Russian Investigative
Committee, which probes serious crime, confirmed: ‘Four children corpses have
been found in a children’s area during the rescue operations.’
Earlier reports said
children died from ‘gas poisoning’ in the mall.
Witnesses say there was no
fire alarm in the centre.
Eyewitness Alexander
Dorogov said: ‘Two floors went up in smoke in five minutes. The children’s play
area in the centre was engulfed in smoke in two minutes.
‘The smoke was so thick
that you couldn’t see a stretched out hand. When firefighters came, two people
had already jumped out of windows.
‘We found some carpet to
hold out and catch one of them.’
In addition to concerns
over gas poisoning, there were fears the burned shopping centre could collapse.
Fifteen fire teams,
including 60 firemen were scrambled to the scene, where some 1,500 square
metres of the mall was ablaze.
Videos show a jumper
smashing into an awning over a door on the way down as onlookers screamed. The
person is believed to have died from the fall.
Another shopper also jumped
and was reported by witnesses to have survived when they were caught by people
below.
Around 100 people were
evacuated and 20 were rescued from the flames.
Parents were seen on videos
ushering their children away from the scene.
May their soul rest in peace
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