The suspect fired a flare gun onto the dance floor, which was occupied at the time by several hundred people.
At least fifteen people died in a fire recorded last morning in a nightclub in the Russian city of Kostroma, with around 270,000 inhabitants and located on the banks of the Volga River and three hundred northeast of the capital, Moscow. The first investigations also point to the existence of numerous injuries of various kinds. Local authorities indicated that 250 people were evacuated from the establishment.
The same sources specified that the Police had carried out the arrest of the alleged person responsible for the fire. “A suspect has been identified and arrested for an illegal act in one of Kostroma’s nightclubs,” they said.
Russian news agencies said the fire in the bar may have started after a drunken man set off a flare gun on the dance floor. According to Tass, who cites sources from the emergency services, the suspect “was with a woman in the bar, to whom he offered flowers, while he held a flare gun in her hand.” “He then went to the dance floor, and he shot her,” according to this source.
The region’s governor, Sergei Sitnikov, initially claimed that there were 13 fatalities and five injured, but rescue services later reported finding the remains of two more people. “Two new bodies have been discovered. This means that the total number of victims is now 15,” a source from the security teams told the Russian agency Tass.
The Investigation Commission confirmed that it had initiated “a criminal proceeding for a crime” that “caused negligent death to numerous people”, and specified that forensic technicians and doctors were working at the scene of the incident.
five hours of work
State television footage showed dozens of firefighters and emergency personnel battling the massive blaze that engulfed the one-story building.
Local emergency services said they received the first reports of the fire at around 2am and the flames had burned 3,500 square meters. The flames were extinguished at half past seven in the morning, according to Governor Sitnikov.
On its website, Polygon describes itself as a typical Russian ‘stolovaya’ – a restaurant that serves traditional food and is a cocktail bar at night. The place was very popular among the workers of the city.
Kostroma is one of the oldest cities in Russia and is famous for its medieval architecture and monasteries.
This catastrophe is reminiscent of previous ones registered in the country. In March 2018, a fire in a shopping center killed sixty people, including around forty children and teenagers, in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. In 2009, 156 people died in a massive fire at a nightclub in Perm, in the Urals.
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