Death toll in Siberia mall fire rises to 37, dozens missing

This handout picture released by The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry on March 25, 2018, shows emergency vehicles as they gather outside a burning shopping center in Kemerovo, Siberia. (AFP)

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 (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, Russia. At least three children and a woman have died in a fire that broke out in a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. (Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations photo via AP)

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.