Kemerovo fire: Russia crowd condemns officials over disaster

 

Hundreds of people are protesting in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, angry at Russian officials over the leisure complex fire that killed at least 64 people, 41 of them children.

President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kemerovo earlier and blamed "criminal negligence" for Sunday's blaze.
Relatives say as many as 85 people are still missing, most of them children, according to Interfax news agency.
Investigators say the fire alarm was switched off and exits were blocked.
Some 300 people rallied outside the local government headquarters on Tuesday, demanding that officials be sacked over the fire safety shortcomings.

Media captionFirefighters tackle fatal shopping centre blaze

The cause of the fire is not yet known, but Russia's Investigative Committee has spoken of "serious violations" at the Winter Cherry mall.
A woman in the Kemerovo crowd drew applause when she said "children called their parents, asked them for help, asked for the fire brigades to be sent in".
Officials were booed when they urged the crowd to disperse, after the protest had already lasted seven hours, Russia's RIA news agency reported.
Regional deputy governor Sergei Tsivilev then got down on his knees to beg forgiveness, and was applauded by the crowd.

President Putin also expressed indignation over the disaster - though he did not speak to the crowd.
"What is happening here?" he said, after laying a wreath. "This is no battle or an unexpected methane outburst in a mine."
"People, children came to relax. We are talking about demography and are losing so many people because of what? Because of criminal negligence, sloppiness."

What do we know so far?

Sunday's blaze started on an upper floor of the complex at about 17:00 local time (10:00 GMT).
The mall's shops, cinema and bowling alley were packed at the time as it was the beginning of the school holiday.
Video on social media showed people jumping from windows to escape.
The Investigative Committee says a fire safety technician at the complex "switched off the alarm system" after being alerted about the fire.
It said a criminal investigation had begun.

Five people have been arrested including the official suspected of deactivating the public address system.
In a Facebook post (in Russian), Kemerovo politician Anton Gorelkin said that "fire exits were shut, turning the complex into a trap" and "there was no organised evacuation".
He also said a fire extinguisher that could have doused the flames at the start did not work.

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'My path was blocked'

At the scene: Sergei Goryashko and Elizaveta Fokht, BBC Russian

Eight-year-old Darina was having fun at a children's birthday party in the Winter Cherry leisure complex when the deadly fire broke out.
Her mother Irina often took her there. On Sunday, she had left Darina at the party on the fourth floor while she went down to the second floor to do some shopping.
It was the start of a public holiday and many children were playing upstairs at the critical moment without adults standing by to help.
Irina said that on the second floor people began shouting "fire!". "I tried to go back up, but my path was blocked, there was a lot of people."