MOSCOW, April 20 (RAPSI) – Investigators reported Friday that 60 people had died in the fire in the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall.
According to the Investigative Committee’s press service, expert findings and check of applications over missing persons let investigators determine the final number of casualties. Initially it was reported that 64 people including dozens of children were killed by fire.
The blaze in the mall occurred on March 25. A criminal case has been launched over involuntary manslaughter, violation of fire safety regulations that left more than two persons dead and provisions of services that don’t meet safety requirements.
Eighr persons were charged and detained in the case. They are: Yulia Bogdanova, CEO of the Kemerovsky Confectionary Combine, a company owning the mall, Tanziliya Komkova, chief of the region’s State Construction Inspection, a formal head of the mall’s owner company Georgy Sobolev; the mall’s manager Nadezhda Suddenok; CEO of the company System Integrator that developed the fire safety system Igor Polozinenko; an employee of the company, who personally installed the fire alarm Alexander Nikitin, a guard who allegedly turned off the emergency notification system when he received a fire signal Sergey Antyushin and fire team commander Sergey Genin, who was charged with negligence.
Moreover, on March 28, the court issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian national Nikita Kuvikov known as pranker Yevgeny Volnov, who allegedly disinformed people of the death toll in the blaze, in absentia. He was charged with inciting hatred and enmity.
According to investigation, the pranker called medical settings and government agencies on the phone and distributed false information on the death toll in the accident in order to destabilize the situation. Reportedly, he said that about 300 people were killed by fire.