Distraught and angry, thousands of Russians yesterday took to the main square of a Siberian city to confront local officials whom they blamed for a shopping mall fire that killed at least 64 people, most of them children.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also visited the city, blamed the deaths on “a criminal negligence, sloppiness,” as he laid flowers in tribute to the victims.
He did not address the rally, which lasted at least six hours.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The blaze engulfed the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo on Sunday, the first weekend of the school recess, trapping dozens of parents and children inside.
Witnesses reported that fire alarms were silent and many doors were locked. Some victims were children who died in a locked movie theater.
Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov said 58 bodies have searching for six more.
Photo: AFP
Emergency officials told the Tass news agency that 41 of the victims were children.
The angry residents rallied outside the regional government building in Kemerovo, with many taking the stage to accuse the authorities of hiding the real scale of the disaster.
One protester, Igor Vostrikov, addressed Deputy Governor Sergei Tsivilyov, saying that families of the victims think the death toll is much higher than stated because the entire movie theater burned down in the city 3,000km east of Moscow.
“We’re not calling for blood,” he said at the rally. “The children are dead, you can’t give them back. We need justice.”
When Tsivilyov dismissed the protesters’ call as “a PR stunt,” Vostrikov said that he has lost his wife, sister and three daughters, aged two, five and seven, in the fire.
“They died because they were locked in a movie theater,” Vostrikov said in an interview on the Dozhd television station. “They were calling from there, asking for help: ‘We’re locked in, we’re suffocating.’ No one helped because when the blaze broke out, everyone ran away.”
The protest underscored the residents’ frustration with the official response to the tragedy.
Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev yesterday had still not visited the site of the fire or met with the relatives, and Putin did not address the nation or immediately declare a period of mourning.
Tuleyev, meeting with Putin during his visit, blamed “the opposition” and “local busybodies” for fomenting the protests, and said that families of the victims were not at the rally.
In an apparent reaction to public pressure, the Kremlin yesterday issued a statement, declaring today would be a day of mourning.
Investigators announced later that they are asking the court to arrest five suspects, but did not say who they were.
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