MOSCOW: The death toll at a shopping mall blaze in the Russian city of Kemerovo on Sunday has risen to 37, news agencies reported, citing local authorities.
Some were unaccounted for when fire tore through a shopping mall in the city, authorities were quoted as saying.
TASS news agency, citing the crisis center set up after the fire, said 40 of those missing were children.
The Investigative Committee, which investigates high-profile crimes and reports directly to President Vladimir Putin, earlier said as many as 35 people could be missing, while five were dead.
“Three women, a child and a man have been killed” and 30 people hospitalized following the blaze in the Winter Cherry shopping center in Kemerovo, an industrial city in central Siberia, the committee said in a statement.
Firefighters were still battling to get the blaze under control on Sunday afternoon, after more than 200 people were evacuated from the building, it added.
There was no immediate indication of the cause of the fire. Television pictures showed people jumping from the windows of the mall, which was engulfed in black smoke.
Kemerovo is a coal-producing region some 3,600 km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow.
Death toll in Siberia mall fire rises to 37, dozens missing
Updated 26 March 2018
Death toll in Siberia mall fire rises to 37, dozens missing
