THOUSANDS of angry and distraught Russians have rallied in a Siberian city to demand a full probe into a shopping centre fire that killed at least 64 people, many of them children.
President Vladimir Putin visited the makeshift memorial to the victims outside the shopping centre, and blamed the deaths on “a criminal negligence, sloppiness” as he laid flowers in tribute to the victims. He did not meet with the protesters.
The blaze engulfed the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo on Sunday, the first weekend of the school holidays, trapping dozens of parents and children inside.
Eyewitnesses reported that fire alarms were silent and many doors were locked. Some of the victims were children who died in a locked movie theatre.
Investigators said emergency exits were blocked and a security guard turned off the public announcement system when he received a call about the blaze, but still had no “reasonable” explanation for his actions.
The residents rallied outside the regional government building in Kemerovo for hours, with many of the protesters taking the stage to accuse the authorities of hiding the real scale of the disaster.
The impromptu protest underscored frustration with the official response to the tragedy: the local governor has not visited the site of the fire or met with relatives, and Putin has not announced a period of national mourning.
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