Translated material
Playing with fire
Nightclub fire kills ten people
Ten people died and eight more were injured as a result of a fire that occurred on Sunday night in the capital’s erotic club “911” on Malaya Dmitrovka Street, 6. The cause of the tragedy, according to preliminary information, was careless handling of alcohol, which was used by the artists in the traditional fire show for the establishment. The flames, out of control, engulfed the premises of the club in a matter of minutes, where about one and a half hundred partygoers were relaxing that night. Yesterday, prosecutors spent the entire day interrogating those who could shed light on the causes of the tragedy. The administration of the Lenkom Theater, which owns the building, in turn, was racking its brains on how to perform “Tartuffe” in the smoke, which, after the fire in the nightclub, never completely cleared.The fire broke out at the 911 club on Sunday around 3:00. At this time, a fire show is traditionally held here. It was during this performance, according to eyewitnesses, that the fire started. According to the club’s bartender, voiced by Yevgeny Bobylev, a representative of the capital’s department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, “one of the waiters became ill during the stunt, he dropped a burning object, and because of this, a five-liter canister of alcohol caught fire, after which the fire spread to the stage.” From the stage, the flames spread to the curtains draping the hall around the perimeter, and as a result, literally in a matter of minutes, the entire dance hall was engulfed in fire. Almost immediately, the club's premises began to fill with suffocating, acrid smoke from the burning decoration. At that time, about 150 people were rocking the club. The staff tried to evacuate, but panic began. There are no windows in the 911, people rushed to the doors, a stampede began, everyone ran out in what they were wearing. Some visitors immediately went home, some waited for cars in a nearby cafe, washing away traces of soot and scaring the rare visitors of the night coffee shop with their stories.
The planned evacuation of strip club visitors began only with the arrival of firefighters. The arriving rescuers had to solve two problems at once - getting people out and looking for water, which for some reason was not in the nearest hydrant. By that time, the fire had covered about 100 square meters. m, and the fire was assigned the second number of complexity on a five-point scale. The 25 crews that arrived at Malaya Dmitrovka managed to cope with the fire in just an hour. Having divided into five teams, the firemen systematically poured water over all the premises of the club.
According to the head of the operational response department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Moscow, Igor Kuryakov, the work was complicated by the construction of the building. The club rented space from the Lenkom Theater, located in a building built in 1907 - with wooden ceilings and many voids. Already in the morning, when clearing the rubble, the bodies of the dead were discovered. Six men and four women, according to preliminary data, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. Almost immediately, five victims of the tragedy were identified, among them were two Bulgarian citizens (passports were found on them) and a club dancer.
The prosecutor's office of the Central Administrative District of Moscow yesterday opened a criminal case into the fire under two articles of the Criminal Code - “violation of fire safety rules, resulting in the death of two or more persons” and “destruction or damage of property through negligence.” Investigators and experts worked at the scene of the tragedy all Sunday.
Yesterday, Moscow Deputy Prosecutor Vladimir Ponevezhsky announced preliminary versions of the causes of the fire. “It was established that the fire occurred as a result of the ignition of a vessel containing about two liters of alcohol-containing liquid. Then the flame spread to a five-liter canister of alcohol-containing liquid located in the immediate vicinity, after which the stage caught fire,” Mr. Ponevezhsky said. However, the prosecutor's office noted that the investigation is still ongoing.
In the Lenkom theater itself, from which the 911 club rented the premises, they say that in the fire “neither the theater itself, nor the scenery, nor the props were damaged.” They didn’t even plan to cancel the evening performance, despite the fact that the smell of burning and smoke in the premises of Lenkom was clearly felt even several hours after the fire. “The performance “Tartuffe” will not be cancelled,” the management said yesterday.
Largest fires in nightclubs and discos
December 26, 2000. In the city of Luoyang (China), a fire occurred in the Dongdu Shansha shopping center during a children's disco. 200 schoolchildren and more than 100 parents died in the fire. The investigation revealed that there were no fire extinguishers or emergency exits in the building.
July 21, 2002. A major fire at a discos in the Peruvian capital Lima killed 30 people. The fire occurred as a result of careless handling of fire. One of the bartenders showed off his skills of juggling with flaming rods. Suddenly, a spark hit the curtains and wooden structures, after which a fire started. There were about a thousand people in the room at the time of the incident.
December 1, 2002. 47 people died in a fire at one of the discos in the center of the Venezuelan capital Caracas. As the investigation showed, the vast majority of people died from poisoning by toxic gases released during the combustion.
August 30, 2003. In Poland, there was a fire at the Pyramid discotheque, one of the largest in Silesia (southern Poland). Firefighters had to evacuate about 1 thousand people. There were no casualties. About 1 thousand square meters were engulfed in fire. meters.
October 25, 2003. A strong fire broke out at the Wolf's discotheque in the suburb of Poruba, the largest Czech industrial center in Ostrava. A girl died, more than 50 young people received burns, poisoning with poisonous gases and injuries of varying severity.
December 31, 2004. In Buenos Aires, a fire broke out at the Republic Cro-Magnon discotheque, where more than a thousand young people were present. The cause of the fire was hooliganism on the part of a group of young men who began throwing sparklers at the ceiling. Due to violations of fire safety rules, all emergency exits were blocked, and as a result of the resulting panic, 194 people died. More than 700 boys and girls were injured.
August 22, 2006. The fire broke out in a nightclub located in the French town of Marsat, near Clermont-Ferrand near Lyon. A night disco popular with locals and tourists was set on fire by a DJ who decided that a little live fire on the dance floor wouldn't hurt. He poured gasoline on the floor and ignited it, and then added more, thinking that there was not enough fire. A criminal case has been initiated against the owner of the establishment and the arsonist himself.