Kemerovo (Russia),
\nRussia holds a day of national mourning on Wednesday for the dozens of victims of a Siberia shopping centre fire, as calls multiply for the sacking of negligent<\/p>\n
officials and a thorough probe into blatant safety violations.<\/p>\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin took the unusual step\u2014for him\u2014of visiting the Siberian industrial city of Kemerovo, where the tragedy occurred, and faced<\/p>\n
emotional questions about how so many could have died \u201cbecause of criminal negligence\u201d.<\/p>\n
The current toll is at least 64 dead, including 41 children.<\/p>\n
Safety exits were blocked, cinema doors were blocked, the fire alarm system was not working and a security guard failed to trigger the public warning system,<\/p>\n
investigators said.<\/p>\n
The regional authorities appeared to have turned a blind eye to violations by the owners of the complex, which included cinemas, a bowling alley and children\u2019s<\/p>\n
play areas, as well as shops and restaurants.<\/p>\n
The shopping centre opened in 2013 despite the emergency services having pointed out problems with fire safety. The owners did not make improvements<\/p>\n
after a 2016 inspection.<\/p>\n
It was registered as a business with less than 100 staff in order to reduce official checks.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny businessman can tell you how much it costs to make a fire inspector turn a blind eye to violations,\u201d wrote popular blogger Ilya Varlamov.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was among several thousand mourners who came to leave flowers on a Moscow square on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
Some there shouted slogans calling for the sacking of Kemerovo\u2019s regional governor Aman Tuleyev and for a \u201cRussia without Putin!\u201d In Kemerovo,<\/p>\n
thousands of people spent more than ten hours at a rally on the main square, both confronting officials and mourning the victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is really responsible?,\u201d \u201cWhat is the real number of victims?\u201d and \u201cPawns will be jailed, kings will get away with it\u201d were some of the slogans on placards<\/p>\n
held by protesters.<\/p>\n
The announcement that five people had been arrested, including the owner of the building and the head of the company that managed it as well as one of those<\/p>\n
in charge of security, was not enough to assuage public anger.<\/p>\n
Many in Kemerovo voiced fears that no senior figures would be punished and called for the sacking of top officials including the region\u2019s governor Tuleyev.<\/p>\n
Rumours swirled that the true total of victims was much higher than had been announced, even prompting the city mayor Ilya Seredyuk to allow a group of<\/p>\n
protesters to inspect morgues.<\/p>\n
Deputy regional governor Sergei Tsivilev went to talk to protesters and confronted one, asking him: \u201cYoung man, you\u2019re talking to people calmly.<\/p>\n
What do you want? To get publicity from grief?\u201d The man, who gave his name as Sergei Vostrikov, then told him he had lost his wife, three children<\/p>\n
and his sister in the fire and accused him of treating people like \u201ccattle\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tsivilev then kneeled down to ask for forgiveness for the mistakes that led to the fire.<\/p>\n
Vostrikov urged Kemerovo residents to hold another protest on Saturday.<\/p>\n
At mourning ceremonies in central Moscow and Saint Petersburg on Tuesday evening, people shouted protest slogans such as \u201cPut Putin on trial,<\/p>\n
put Tuleyev on trial!\u201d The region\u2019s governor Tuleyev, in office since 1997, has failed to visit the scene of the tragedy or meet protesters.<\/p>\n
On Monday his first public reaction was not to speak to the public but to thank Putin for personally phoning him to give instructions.<\/p>\n
Putin arrived in Kemerovo on Tuesday where he visited the improvised memorial set up by the public and laid flowers. He also held a televised meeting with<\/p>\n
Tuleyev, the emergency services minister and the country\u2019s chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin.<\/p>\n
Tuleyev thanked Putin again and apologised to him personally for what happened. He promised to meet each affected family and to pay off any outstanding<\/p>\n
debts from loans taken out by victims.<\/p>\n
He accused the \u201copposition\u201d of taking advantage of the situation to feed on \u201cpeople\u2019s grief\u201d and of posing as relatives of the victims.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s main opposition leader Navalny, in his blog, condemned the Kemerovo authorities, who have also put pressure on his supporters in the city, as \u201ca<\/p>\n
criminal conglomerate, real bandits who think only of personal profit\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said that rescue workers had used outdated equipment and that there was a lack of proper coordination at the site of the blaze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kemerovo (Russia), Russia holds a day of national mourning on Wednesday for the dozens of victims of a Siberia shopping centre fire, as calls multiply for the sacking of negligent officials and a thorough probe into blatant safety violations. Russian President Vladimir Putin took the unusual step\u2014for him\u2014of visiting the Siberian industrial city of Kemerovo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26255,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26253\/revisions\/26255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}