CbsNews
MOSCOW — A fire in a cafe in the Russian city of Kostroma killed at least 13 people and injured five others on Saturday, local authorities said.
The governor of the Kostroma region, Sergei Sitnikov, said 13 people died in the fire and five more were slightly injured. Russian news agency Interfax cited local emergency officials as saying that the death toll stood at 15. The contradicting numbers couldn’t be immediately reconciled.
Authorities claim that someone used a flare gun to cause the fire to start early in the morning. A brawl broke out in the cafe just before the fire, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether it had anything to do with the use of a flare gun.
250 people were successfully evacuated by rescuers. During the fire, which consumed an area of 3,500 square meters, the cafe’s roof collapsed (more than 37,000 square feet). Twelve residents of a nearby residential building were evacuated as a precaution while firefighters spent five hours battling the blaze.
Police have detained a suspect and have begun a criminal investigation.
