64 die in Moscow mall fire

MOSCOW, Mar 27 (Agencies): At least 64 people were killed by a fire which engulfed a busy shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, Russian investigators said on Monday, and some of the dead were children.

The fire, one of the deadliest in Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union, swept through the upper floors of the "Winter Cherry" shopping centre on Sunday afternoon where a cinema complex and children's play area were located.

Emergency services said they had extinguished the blaze, but later said it had reignited, and that rescuers were struggling to reach the building's upper floors because the roof had collapsed. TV footage on Monday showed thick black smoke rising from the yellow building.

It was unclear if any people were still unaccounted for, but 11 people were being treated in hospital, including an 11-year-old boy who was in a serious condition.

Earlier on Monday, people had posted appeals on social media seeking news of their relatives or friends, and authorities set up a centre in a school near the mall to deal with inquiries.

Anna Kuznetsova, Russia's children's rights commissioner, said the fire had been caused by incompetence and warned there were many similar shopping centres.

"Other regions, the bosses of other malls must right now, without waiting for (routine) checks, ask themselves: Have we done everything we can to ensure something like this doesn't happen here," Kuznetsova said in a statement.

The shopping mall, a former cake factory, had few windows or doors.

Meanwhile, thousands of angry residents are rallying in the Russian city of Kemerovo to demand a full probe following a fire in a shopping mall that killed at least 64 people, many of them children.

The protesters are disputing the official death toll, saying that the authorities are hiding the real scale of the disaster.

The blaze engulfed the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo on Sunday, the first weekend of the school recess, trapping dozens of parents and children. Eyewitnesses reported that fire alarms were silent and many doors were locked.