Sixty four people are confirmed to have died in a fire at a shopping centre in Siberia.
Russia’s emergency situations minister Vladimir Puchkov told a televised briefing on Monday that firefighters had finished combing through the four floors of the shopping centre in the city of Kemerovo.
Six bodies have not yet been recovered, he said.
Puchkov would not say how many of the victims were children.
The fire was extinguished on Monday (Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations/AP)
The Winter Cherry centre was a popular destination for families and it was packed with visitors on Sunday, the first weekend of the school holiday, when the fire broke out.
The fire was extinguished on Monday morning after burning through the night.
Parts of the building were still smouldering and the floors of the cinema hall had caved in in places, officials said.
State news agency Tass had earlier reported that 11 of the bodies had been found in the centre’s cinema.
(PA Graphics)
The shopping centre opened in 2013 and also included a petting zoo, children’s centre and bowling.
Tass said the fire started on the top floor but the cause was not yet known. A criminal investigation has begun.
The shopping centre is about 1,900 miles east of Moscow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here