Russia’s Emergencies Ministry early on March 13 raised the confirmed death toll from a fire at a shopping center in the city of Kazan to 12 after finding more bodies in the debris.
Authorities on March 13 were continuing to search for more than 20 people feared to have died and been buried beneath rubble after fire raced through the Admiral shopping complex on March 11 in the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan region.
At least 55 people were injured, including two police officers and two emergency workers, as a result of the blaze and partial collapse of the three-story shopping complex.
An Emergency Situations Ministry colonel was reportedly among the missing.
A spokesman for Tajikistan's Labor and Migration Board in Russia, Ibrohim Ahmadov, told RFE/RL that at least five of the victims were Tajik citizens.