Massive fire breaks out in Moscow shopping center: one person dies

This is reported by Russian media.

The fire took place on the morning of December 9.

"At 05:58 a.m., a fire dispatcher's station received a message that fire smoke detectors in the Mega Khimki shopping center had been triggered. At 06:19 a.m., after fire brigades arrived at the scene, it had been established that the fire started on the roof," said the speaker of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Russian emergency services inform that they managed to localize fire on an area of ​​7,000 m2. Previously, Russian news outlet Interfax wrote that the fire engulfed 17,000 m2 of the shopping center.

Another Russian media TASS reported that it was planned to engage aviation in fire extinguishing. According to the Russian emergency services, the cause of the fire was a short circuit. However, according to Interfax, arson is also considered among other possible causes.

Near the scene of the incident, explosions were heard at the OVI household chemicals store. As the TASS correspondent reported, the hypermarket itself was almost completely destroyed, only its frame structures remained.

Also, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that one person died as a result of the fire.

The investigative committee started an investigation into the cause of the fire and opened proceedings under Article 216 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "violation of safety rules during work". According to the preliminary data, the fire occurred during the repair of the roof at the OVI warehouse - workers were strengthening the metal structures of the building with the help of electric welding. Versions of arson or short circuit are also considered.

The investigators established local Delta-Stroy as the company which carried out repair work in the MEGA shopping center.

Baza Telegram channel, citing sources, noted that the legal claims of the MEGA shopping center against the contracting organization may amount to RUB 20-30 billion - this is how the preliminary damage caused to the building's structure is estimated. According to a initial estimate, goods worth RUB 500 million were also burned in the OVI store itself.

Media also notes that the fire could have started as early as at 1 a.m. in the morning, when the welder finished his work on this site.  Then one of the sparks could hit the wooden structure, and it started to smolder.

The smoke detectors and the automatic fire extinguishing system were disabled: this is often done during such construction work, so that it does not react to the welding fumes.

Closer to 6 a.m, the fire started to flare up. When the guards noticed the fire, they turned on the fire extinguishing system in manual mode and tried to put out the fire with the help of fire extinguishers, but it was already too late. Only after that they called the fire fighters.

At the time of the fire, there were 20 people in the hypermarket. 19 of them managed to evacuate, and they were not injured.