Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the Emergency Situations Ministry to inspect nightclubs and concert halls across the country Monday as a national day of mourning was observed in memory of the more than 100 people killed in a Perm nightclub fire.
The death toll rose by one to 113 people on Monday, and 121 remained hospitalized in Perm, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Chelyabinsk.
The deadly fire began at about 1 a.m. Saturday when sparks from a pyrotechnics show ignited paneling on the nightclub’s ceiling, trapping hundreds of people celebrating the club’s eighth anniversary.
Putin and Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova visited Moscow’s Vishnevsky hospital, which is treating nine people injured in the fire.
“The Emergency Situations Ministry is already holding additional checks of concert halls, clubs and other similar places,” Putin said. “But the main thing is to rescue those who were burned and injured. Many of them remain in grave condition.”
More than 240 witnesses and injured clubgoers have been questioned as part of an investigation into the blaze, the Perm branch of the Investigative Committee said.
“Searches are being carried out, documents are being seized, and the fire scene is being examined now,” it said in a statement.
Charges have been filed against four suspects, including nightclub owner Anatoly Zak, managing director Svetlana Yefremova and art director Oleg Fetkulov, who are accused of causing multiple deaths by breaking fire safety regulations, the Investigative Committee in Moscow said. The charges carry a sentence of up to seven years in prison.
The fourth suspect in the case, Sergei Derbenyov, director of the Pirosvet pyrotechnics company, installed the pyrotechnics blamed for the fire. He is charged with negligence causing multiple deaths. If found guilty, Derbenyov faces up to five years in prison.
Investigators said Fetkulov hired Pirosvet through an oral agreement with Derbenyov. Seven pyrotechnic items were installed in the nightclub crowded with about 300 people in violation of a ban on fireworks at mass gatherings, they said.
Derbenyov was earlier charged with pyrotechnics violations after an incident left four people injured in 2005, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported. The charges, however, were dropped.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu has said the Perm club, Khromaya Loshad, or Lame Horse, where the weekend fire broke out, was fined twice for breaking fire safety regulations during inspections in the past year. Another check had been scheduled for Monday, he said.
An unidentified law enforcement source told RIA-Novosti that the rented premises where the nightclub was located had originally belonged to the Defense Ministry.
The Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment Monday evening.
The landlord of the rooms used by the nightclub was seriously injured in the blaze. Investigators have identified him as a suspect but not charged him with wrongdoing.
Fireworks companies expressed concern that sales would drop during the New Year’s holidays, which normally is their busiest time of the year.
“We have already received the first cancellations of fireworks and, most likely, they will continue,” said Oleg Novachuk, head of the Piro Alliance company, RIA-Novosti reported.
Flags flew at half-mast and national television channels canceled entertainment programs and commercials as Russia observed a day of mourning Monday.
News broadcasts showed people bringing flowers and candles to the burned-out nightclub. Twenty-five victims were buried in Perm.
City and regional officials promised to provide 100,000 rubles ($3,340) in compensation to the families of those killed. The health and social development minister said the compensation might grow.
The Kremlin canceled a Moscow concert marking the end of the Year of India in Russia because of the tragedy. The concert was to coincide with the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who expressed his condolences to President Dmitry Medvedev during talks Monday, the Kremlin said.
The last time that a day of national mourning was declared in Russia was on Aug. 13, 2008, after the brief war that followed Georgia’s attempt to reclaim its separatist province of South Ossetia.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Jonah of All America and Canada prayed for the Perm victims during a service at Moscow’s Church of St. Catherine the Great Martyr.
“We have stepped into an epoch where people lose their lives either by chance, criminal negligence or due to their sinfulness,” Kirill said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the Orthodox Church’s web site.