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Boy survives 40ft plunge during Siberian shopping centre fire but lost his parents and sister

Sergei Moskalenko lost his father Evgeny, mother Olesya and sister Ksenia in the blaze in Kemerovo

Peter Stubley
Friday 30 March 2018 15:03 BST
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11-year-old Sergei Moskalenko jumps four storeys from burning shopping centre in Kemerovo, Russia

The 11 year-old boy who was filmed falling out of the burning shopping centre in Russia has survived - but his family died in the fire.

Sergei Moskalenko plunged 40ft to the ground - hitting a light fixture and an awning on the way down - after climbing through a fourth floor window.

Footage of his escape went viral on social media after the blaze tore through the Kemerovo mall in Siberia on 25 March.

Sergei's father Evgeny, 35, mother Olesya, 30, and his four-year-old sister Ksenia were among the 64 victims of the fire.

The boy was initially put into an induced coma by doctors because of his injuries including a fractured pelvis and carbon monoxide poisoning.

“His condition is stable but serious," the head of the intensive care department told Russian media.

"He suffered injury from fall from height, bruising of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, fracture of pelvic bones, but without displacement. And a laceration wound on the cheeks."

Various theories have been suggested as to the cause of the blaze including an electrical short circuit and candles used in a children's celebration.

Russian officials said fire exits were blocked, the fire alarm was out of order and the public address system was turned off at the "Winter Cherry" shopping centre.

Six schoolgirls were among the children who died after being locked inside the cinema on the top floor.

One of them, 12-year-old Viktoria Pochankina, managed to tell her aunt over the phone: "Everything is burning, the doors are blocked. I can't go out, I can't breathe."

The call ended after Viktoria said: "Auntie, tell all my family I love them, tell mum that I love her."

Two hundred animals including rabbits, foxes, meerkats and tortoises are also believed to have perished in the mall's petting zoo.

Thousands of people demonstrated outside the city's government building on Tuesday to accuse the authorities of covering up the true scale of the disaster.

On Friday Russian police arrested Yulia Bodganova, the general director of the company which owns the mall, for fire safety failures.

The mall's technical director, a security guard accused of turning off the fire alarm and two employees of the fire alarm maintenance company have previously been held.

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