huge fire and go to the shopping center in the russian city of camera for sixty four people including many children are confirmed dead. but. if you. didn't see it you could be released to student. soon. four people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy russia's investigative committee says the buildings the merchants the exits were blocked and that the fire alarms were turned off. in other news the wave of russian diplomatic expulsions are announced by the u.s. and more than a dozen european countries in

a show of support of britain which accuses russia of poisoning a double agent and his daughter. and welcome you watching r.t. international with me nicky aaron now we begin this hour with the tragedy in the central russian city of camera for now sixty four people including many children are now known to have died in a huge fire at a shopping and entertainment complex local authorities say ten people are still missing and that the number of fake teletubbies may rise further our video agency ruptly has obtained c.c.t.v. footage from inside the mall is showing the flames spreading and thick smoke rapidly filling the fourth floor it's been reported that the blaze began in the children's play area images showing the panic that ensued have also been emerging online.

would you just push through that you. are stupid as you could tell the goal is to determine your willingness to do so why are you not responding to the march into his or should do more good with us because it's a good last week from. you but you do not cooperate. when you want to question before you send many children were unable to escape from the building some were seen jumping from windows four people have been detained and questioned in connection with the incident however it's still not clear what caused the fire and word of warning you may find some of the following images extremely upsetting. it was horrific the mall was packed with people we could hear the fire alarm.

the smoke filled the cinema a grudge match so someone ran down the stairs it was a terrible crush and zero visibility my hands are still trembling when i imagine what could have some. one man began to panic he said we should jump on the roof because it would soon collapse we shelter from the roof to the rescue but no one came for forty minutes. which nobody to introduce you to. you had to go into the sick doubles where you. were. just going to pull the solution to. the which of the syllable it must have been might imply what it must be because it is not in the sudipta because not most new. richard he said are you sure that given

the motion of the boy being super to visit his night. this used the news knowledge the courage to look up to the stars the portraits a good look at the good with the snow storm. children were very nice and we could only stand there and watch. here's what we know about the winter cherry retell complex it opened in two thousand and thirteen in the city center in a building that had previously been a confectionery functionary and addition to a children's play area that also had to cinemas and a petting zoo around two hundred animals were also killed in the disaster and the aftermath of the fire the city has canceled all entertainment and cultural events as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives their wage and has declared three days of mourning people also bringing flowers candles and perhaps most poignantly

toys to the shopping center. in comerica for. the latest in the stories the preliminary results of the probe by the russian investigative committee and apparently the shopping mall was. operated amid some very severe fire safety violations more moreover the one of the security guards apparently disabled the fire prevention system before the blaze broke out snow this shed some lights on the cave a have a very good broke out after the fire because people were basically trapped inside there was no alarm there was no siren so they didn't get an early warning also sprinklers didn't work so that failed to move and moreover the coding to the russians investigative committee fire escape exits were blocked they were locked so people had to literally break down. jump out of the windows so many of the

survivors good severe injuries during that as to what caused the fire is not clear yes we do know that it apparently started at the children's playground and there are two main versions one is that somebody apparently tried apparently troubled teens said the foreman pit in the trampoline area a blaze deliberately another one is the electrical circuit malfunction but whatever whatever it is the all of that all of that inferno could have been avoided if the prevention system actually works now and behind me is a self improvised vigil and it seems that every single person in town of come here to lay flowers growing toys and light candles every single person to be a state when you take it on a very deep personal level they've lost dozens of their loved ones each and every

one of them just overnight now the investigation of course continues now this this shopping mall used to be a confectionery and in fact it conducted fire drills just last week so a lot of a lot of very grave and outrages floors missed in those drills and so the investigation is looking into that looking into how this horror became possible how this absolutely soul crushing tragedy could have been avoided. we spoke to a man who was at the shopping center with his family when the fire started he says the exits were clearly marked and that it was very difficult to find a way out. when i found out about the fire my first thought was to try to find my wife and child luckily though i somehow bumped into them in the crowd and we got out there were no fire alarms nothing i just noticed a smell and then a man told me to leave finding a way around the shopping center is how you don't know where the stairs lead or

where to go there are no directions to exit it's like some sort of labyrinth you won't get far as you're in a panic. many people and camera which is three thousand six hundred kilometers east of moscow have been queuing to donate blood for the victims fifty people were injured in the fire tell of them were taken to hospital including several children . one of the most seriously injured is a boy who leapt from an upper floor window he was the only member of his family to survive again you may find some of the scenes you're about to see distressing.

but the. city you see when you do which is it would seem. pretty good would be new but you. didn't see it on good movie with the school student. you can see. people had serious injuries and now needs an artificial lung. but his condition has slightly in its. fullest. well it's just overwhelming you hear one story you think it it couldn't be worse and then you hear something else that will but tears your heart that bought and take for example this this group of eight kids classmates who were out on

a school trip to camera after the big city these are rural kids so this was for them a pleasure huish treat spring holidays they're out there in this shopping center the bowling their ice skating they go to the cinema and fifteen minutes after the film started the fire broke out make no mistake here people try to get in fathers mothers relatives even total strangers try to get in there and help these people get them out but the they helped only so many others never left clearly if you must feel like you look at. you to be teach them to speak a little bit. here not the new look because if you pull it you mean you come in they didn't use it. can't instead of confessing to the colors inside the chose not to is it the senate me a mystic mean nothing to live if you move within i'm deeply moved on with you when

you concluded. it was divine to clear the curriculum. if. you close the. loop you don't understand. these kids these adults they were trapped fire spreads like you wouldn't believe in a smoke it it isn't just stooping it's deadly and it fills everything very very quickly but the fire exits were reportedly blocked the fire alarm was reportedly according to authorities switched off by security at the shopping mall so by the thai people realized something was wrong and it was in many cases too late and some of these kids in the cooling their relatives mothers fathers friends begging them to help somebody to come to help to rescue them others posted on their

social media profile saying they were they were here that it was bad please somebody please help they called their relatives they called their mothers with the final farewell you know there's one particularly distressing story about a mother and a father who in kember of right now waiting to identify the the bodies of the three girls five and to eleven years old the father brought them in during the day yesterday. to watch cartoons he took them to the cinema on the fourth floor and then. himself went down to the first floor to do whatever it is that he wanted to do he gets a call from one of his door the saying there's a fire and that the door was locked they couldn't get out you runs upstairs and there's smoke everywhere he gets a wet cloth and tries to for jean get to the get to the cinema where he left his girls he couldn't do it he ran outside to find rescuers to get some sort of help by

which point of course. it was too late they lost all three girls and this is just this is just two cases that i've mentioned here it is it's truly horrendous nevertheless people did try to help and even those that didn't lose any relatives the invisible shock i was told by my boyfriend at the time of the incident that he and his friend tried to drag children away from the fire because of the thinks moment they were prevented from staying there and you learned by the shopping mall center workers who said all the children go out people were smashing windows with their hands and feet because it was impossible to be in there and it was so scary when i saw how people jumped out of the windows one person jumped in and another boy is now in a coma from what you have heard and another person has broke his spine but is a life i lost some friends in that part of the good managed to ski but i lost

contact with the ground stop this and have not heard from them for over a day. with me now john lentini who's a certified u.s. fire investigator and the head of scientific fire analysis mr leontine thank you for joining us on r.t. international now we understand that the children's play area which is where the fire is believed to have started out was on an upper floor of this small could this may have been a contribution factor to the huge loss of life here. but the wire on the upper floor of the amazing that it was allowed to spread downward players typically go the other direction so. this is this is just a total failure of any fire safety program. only in the mall people made their stations as the mall was being constructed and now those decisions are coming home to roost and this is what happens how difficult is it would you say to

contain this type of fire in such a big building like this it's not difficult at all if you have proper fire protection equipment in place that have sprinklers and it's amazing that you would have a place of assembly like this with so many people that doesn't have sprinklers how does it mean that they even have alarms here or if they did have alarms they weren't working. it's just shocking you know in in this this day and age a hundred years ago we had we have fires like this in the united states but. the response was to change the laws and not allow people to construct buildings without sprinkler systems or with harmful given that there were no active fire alarms how difficult would it have been to organize the evacuation. well you saw how it was

organized it was not organized at all there should have been an alarm telling people where the nearest exit was. in the states we used we used were exact evaded actual voice announcements instead of just a bell or a flash or we had we used to have those we still have them in some places but generally we have an actual voice but comes on and tells people how to get out and here we had blocked exits. and i'm sure that will or will interest the authorities at some point and why though that it's what what lessons do you think needs to be learned to avoid this kind of massive tragedy in the future in buildings like this used by large numbers of families you need to do what some pressure on your. government through orus reasonable why are protection was if you will allow people to build mosques without records and without working the

arms and allow people to put up a painted door that can't be opened from one side in an emergency you're going to continue to have this kind of tragedy in it so it's a question of the people who will if the people see through their government that they want safer buildings the government can make that happen that's what happened here john tony fire investigator and head of scientific fire analysis in florida thank you for sharing your expertise with us or your mike white and the families of the victims met with the city officials in a nearby school who explained to them the grim procedure for identifying the dead. it was built for the locals or for the. weak surely. for the leaders are simply giving us the. you've got the guts to

work. for the company for the good of the worker you're just. deceitful to do what you do with. the government money because you were basically what you believe the begins to go on because of the liberal left. the but the. people around the world have been spending their condolences to the families of the victims the leaders of the u.k. u.s. germany and china are among those to have expressed their star the president of the european council donald tusk even made a statement in russian. you have to pay to. see. five to thirty just the world. after they came it over is up what they should be. about. but what our table be continuing to follow the tragedy over the coming hours just to remind you sixty four people have been confirmed dead at this point

a number of those are still missing recovery teams are continuing to work at the burned out shopping center in kemah. i. was. when i was told seemed wrong. why don't we all just don't all. let me. get to shape out just be active. and in detroit because the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. with lawmakers manufactured consensus to public wealth. when the

ruling classes protect themselves. with the crime. be the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. welcome back now more than a dozen european countries as well as the united states and canada have announced a wave of expulsions of russian diplomats over the poisoning of former double agent sergei script pal and his daughter in the u.k. well let's get the details from both sides of the atlantic now with our correspondents americana in washington d.c. and he suggests that the comedy in

a culture of a in moscow well let's first go to some mirror in washington this summer was the trumpet ministration saying. well the u.s. will be expelling the most russian diplomats out of all the countries that have decided to do so and the white house said that they'll be expelling sixty diplomats twelve of which are un staff members and they will have approximately seven days to leave and the white house released a statement explaining its decision saying quote the united states takes this action in conjunction with our nato allies and partners around the world in response to russia's use of a military grade chemical weapon on the soil of the united kingdom and according to the russian ambassador who was summoned to the state department where the move was announced moscow has a vow to respond which will likely be a mirror response blaming washington for deteriorating relations between the two countries now the ambassador also reiterated that there's been no proof to support the claim that russia was responsible for the poisoning and in addition the consulate in seattle will be shut down on march thirtieth on the other hand there

are some voices who are opposed to this cold war rhetoric and have spoken out against it let's take a quick look. at what we do know what the new cold war. we do not want to be dragged into a new form choice with this latest decision u.s. russia relations are at an all time low so we're just going to have to wait and see how russia responds americana in washington thank you for that well let's get europe's response now and the issues that there is in berlin one nation what are you are apparently just saying. well across here opinion we've seen a wave of expulsions of russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of. his daughter yulia now this is despite the ongoing investigation despite the kremlin saying they have no involvement president of the european council donald tusk has given the statements on this joint response from the e.u.

members let's take a listen to what he had to say. they were at the today told pti in the member states have decided to expose russian diplomats. additional measures including for shows within the government your framework. to be excluded in the coming days and weeks. so that's pulteney e.u. member states out of twenty eight it's been confirmed that germany will expel four russian diplomats they've been given one week to leave german soil to me say that they were expelled out of solidarity with the u.k. and the foreign minister didn't take that decision lightly also expelling four russian officials off from poland expelling three lithuania and the czech republic expelling two russian officials denmark netherlands and italy and expelling one we have a stone yet romania to be fed and ukraine is also expelling thirteen russian diplomats

now it must be remembered though that there are other voices to be head austria has confirmed they will not be taking any measures against russia they will not be expelling any russian diplomats now this mayor koch what the president of the european commission said at the e.u. summit last week about the importance of communication at stake listen to what he had to say. everyone was also indicate the willingness to give a structural shift from. newton open chamoun to discuss who for sure all of them do not question. so when it's that this is open dialogue with russia is necessary for now though we've seen a wave of expulsions following the u.k. prime minister's visit to brussels but it's going to take at least two to three weeks for the chemical weapons forty who are carrying out this independent investigation to finalize their analysis yet these measures of expulsion being taken now. with the response in europe now let's talk about the reaction let's

bring in medina cauchon of russia's reactions do you know what steps is most planning to take in line to solve the expulsions. well the russian foreign ministry has released a statement shortly after the news broke that a number of countries are expelling russian diplomats now in this statement to moscow expressed its protest over these expulsions calling it an unfriendly stab that will not help in solving the poisoning of the ex double agents and he's daughter now the statement also goes on to say that the expulsions are being seen as a provocation in moscow has been calling for quite some time for cooperation and this cripple case and now says that despite repeated requests to london it still has no objective information concerning the case adding that at the moment such a hostile move on the part of this group of countries will not go on and search and

we have already received a number of reactions coming from different high level officials and the russian diplomatic society now in atlanta one of russian ambassador to the u.s. has protested against what he called a wrongful move by the u.s. to expel russian diplomats. expressed a strong position to them i pointed out today that there's not been a single shred of evidence that russia's involvement in this tragedy the most productive way toward rest its case would be a professional investigation by the. russian ambassador to france also said that he is deeply disappointed with this move and also called it a provocation. we believe the you shouldn't fall for this dirty group just brought all the talk about to use solidarity is laughable as there can only be solidarity in the fight against real threats but not in support of insinuations. kremlin

spokesperson we need to keep this call for called this unprecedented situation and said that the russian foreign ministry is at the moment studying the situation and drafting a list of possible actions and that draft or will shortly be presented to the russian president. putin you know what we are seeing now is unprecedented a from dreaming there's never been a case where a country is being accused of something which the accusers cannot even articulate themselves and they're not even trying to articulate it well i can say this whole case is unprecedented it verges on the sort of gangsterism in international affairs as you over are a number of high level officials are at the moment expressing their disappointment as well as does believe to the recent move by the u.s. and a number of you countries to expel russian diplomats but in a culture never in moscow thank you for that update and thank you to all three of our correspondents keeping across the situation in europe the u.s. and in russia. let's bring in

a guest now let's cross live to political analyst chris bambery mr barry good to have you on the program what do you make of the white house saying the russian consulate is being closed due to its proximity to a submarine base and bowing. well i mean seattle is home to the on its industry yes but it's also a major pacific poor and of course russia is a pacific power saw you might think you want to keep the pacific trade routes open i think the problem here is that you're increasingly difficult to have a rational debate because any suggestion for instance we might want to wait for evidence to be collected on what actually happened in salzburg you're immediately charged here in the united kingdom or in the united states as being stooge for the adam of putin for being a spokes person for russia for daring to appear in r t and really it creates an atmosphere it is no increasingly difficult to have any discussion really the

atmosphere has been created here particular in the u.k. you know spreading is you're either with to resent me in the british government or you're an enemy of the state you were glad to know putin and in that situation it is very difficult as i say to have a rational discussion about this i think it's worth saying that these tit for tat exposures in this is very serious and it seems to be beginning to spiral a bit a little bit out of control imo not just talking i mean people talk espionage but also we should remember that you know in the last round of explosions i remember the british consulate in petersburg was shut down i know your value among the things britain does is the cultural work it does that i think is a loss to the russian people and the british people that was shut down i hope this doesn't continue to spiral of control and damages economic and cultural lesions between russia and western europe and indeed for that further afield i think as well people in the west should be thinking about going home for getting ukraine

involved in this this is exactly what i wanted to ask him to what extent do you think the these nasty expulsions will cause relations between the fourteen in members and russia to further deteriorate. well they were things are deteriorating very badly and i think here this is an example of you know we've got to do something is the usual catch region after what happened in seoul is really we've got to do something we've got tough but actually we haven't accumulated here in this country the evidence to suggest the russia is responsible there is widespread supposition that is the case however we do require evidence to say this is what we have found this is what we believe as a consequence those and we haven't done so neither in britain or in the international body responsible for this and for their you to suggest that we have the temerity to wait to create the evidence as i say you're simply no way for the stooge of light of the future. of why do you think it is interesting isn't it how slimy your members like austria for instance doesn't think that expelling diplomats

is that the right.