2 detained over Saint Petersburg blaze
Print Edition
Russia yesterday detained two people after a huge fire gutted a historic factory in Saint Petersburg, as firefighters continued putting out the blaze.
On Monday, a fire broke out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building in Russia’s second city. The inferno killed one firefighter and left two more hospitalized with serious burns.
The fire continued burning into yesterday over an area of 500 square meters, the emergencies ministry said, adding that nearly 40 firefighters were involved in extinguishing the blaze and clearing the debris.
The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said that it launched a criminal probe into a death caused by negligence and added that law enforcement had detained the general director of Nevskaya Manufaktura and his deputy.
Investigators cited a “number of violations” regarding fire safety and said that management “knew for a fact” that the premises could not be operated.
They estimated the total area of the blaze at some 4,000 square meters, causing a large part of the roof to collapse and even spreading to nearby trees.
Listed by the Saint Petersburg city government as a cultural heritage site, the building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River was home to one of Russia’s largest textile companies in the 19th century, the Fontanka local news website reported.
It said the company, the Thornton Woollen Mill Company, was founded by British citizen James George Thornton and his sons, and that its products won the highest award at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. The factory was nationalized and run as a state entity during the Soviet period, then privatized in 1992.
In recent years parts of the building continued to operate, manufacturing cloth, while others were rented out as office space and some areas had been abandoned.
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