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In this Russian Emergency Situations Ministry photo, on Sunday, March 25, 2018, smoke rises above a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow, Russia.
25 Mar 2018

The numbers of causalties are rising in the shopping center fire in Southern Siberia - over 600 rescue workers deployed

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Photo: (Above) In this Russian Emergency Situations Ministry photo, on Sunday, March 25, 2018, smoke rises above a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow, Russia.

Video: (Below) TV News report from EuroNews about the Russian mall fire.

At least 48 people have died and more than 60 people are missing after a fire in a shopping center in Siberian Kemerovo. 41 of the missing people are children, a spokesman for the firefighting agency told Russian state media.

People have jumped out of windows to save their lives, according to Interfax.

 

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A large fire broke during Sunday in the shopping center Zimnyaya Vishnya, also known as Winter Cherry, in the Russian city of Kemerovo, southern Siberia.

 

Map over the area

 

The numbers of causalities likely to rise

The numbers of victims to the fire vary by different news media: Early Monday morning, CNN said 48 dead, whereas most others said less. At least 37 people have died and 64 are missing, the BBC reported late Sunday night, Central European Time.

The dead will be hard to identify, says Yevgeny Dedyukhin, Deputy Head of Emergency Reception in Kemerovo.

More than 200 people were evacuated from the mall and people jumped out of windows to save their lives.

The fire broke out on the fourth floor at 17 o'clock, local time, during Sunday afternoon.

There was a playroom with trampolines and a cinema in which 13 of the death victims were found.

According to the regional deputy governor Vladimir Chernov, the playroom is where the fire would have started, reports Interfax.

The fire alarms did not work

When the fire broke out, the fire alarm allegedly did not work and the doors to the cinema may have been closed.

In two of the rooms that formed a part of the cinema, the roof collapsed, writes the BBC.

According to anonymous sources of authority, faulty electrical wiring may have been the cause of the fire.

Vladimir Chernov states that various theories are being investigated right now, including the fact that the fire may have been started by children who were played with lighters or matches.

 

Russian Mall fire

 

Over 660 firefighters and rescue worker on the scene

The shopping center was allegedly 23000 square meters and it was opened in 2013.

The fire was spread through a 1600 square meters area and up to 660 rescue workers were deployed to the scene throughout the day and night.

The fire department has struggled to extinguish the fires, one at a time.

Kemerovo is an industrial city located in Siberia's coal mining region northeast of Kazakhstan. The city has more than half a million inhabitants.