Europe

Fire kills 17 people at Moscow printing plant

Criminal inquiry has been launched into incident that killed Kyrgyzstan workers

A Russian emergency situation employee, left, comforts a woman as colleagues and relatives of dead workers from Kyrgyzstan gather next to the burnt building of a printing plant’s warehouse in Moscow, on Saturday. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP
A Russian emergency situation employee, left, comforts a woman as colleagues and relatives of dead workers from Kyrgyzstan gather next to the burnt building of a printing plant’s warehouse in Moscow, on Saturday. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP
Sat Aug 27 2016 - 16:14

A fire in a Moscow printing plant killed 17 people on Saturday, officials have said.

A representative of the Kyrgyz diaspora in Russia said all the dead were members of its community.

“The incident happened when people were changing shifts at the printing house. It is very hard for us,” Abdygany Shakirov, the Kyrgyz representative told Reuters.

Around 500,000 citizens of the impoverished former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan are working in Russia. The two countries belong to a Russian-dominated customs union.

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The Investigative Committee, which reports directly to president Vladimir Putin, said a criminal inquiry had been launched into the deaths of 17 of the victims of the blaze.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in his Twitter feed that one more person died later in a hospital.

Ilya Denisov, an emergencies ministry official, told Rossiya-24 TV station a malfunctioning lamp caused the fire.

Lax fire safety standards are often blamed for fatal workplace blazes in Russia. In January, 12 people died in a fire in a Moscow clothing factory.

Reuters