A fire broke out at the Right Bank Market in St. Petersburg, leaving one dead and several injured.
On the evening of December 10, the Pravoberezhny Market in St. Petersburg's Nevsky District caught fire. Hundreds of firefighters were called in to put out the blaze. There were injuries and one fatality, Fontanka reports.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations received a report of a fire at 16 Dybenko Street at 5:00 PM. The fire involved a two-story building belonging to the Pravoberezhny Market. Residents of nearby buildings noticed intense flames and thick black smoke almost immediately.
The building was on fire. Initially, it was reported to be 50 square meters, but due to the “high fire load” inside the building, the fire quickly grew in size. At 5:44 PM, the fire was upgraded to a Level 2, and had already engulfed 300 square meters.
At 7:20 PM, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that the fire had grown to 1,500 square meters. One hundred people were evacuated from the danger zone. There were no injuries reported.
At 7:22 PM, the fire was contained. Emergency response number 2 was activated, and firefighters are responding to the additional emergency response number 1-BIS. Twenty-six fire engines and 96 personnel are involved in the firefighting effort.
At 20:43 the open fire was extinguished.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that a 55-year-old man was injured in the fire. He was hospitalized. According to Fontanka, he jumped from the second floor to escape the flames. He is currently being examined at the hospital. He did not suffer burns, but was poisoned by smoke inhalation.
We also have information that a 52-year-old woman was poisoned by carbon monoxide. The victims are currently out of danger.
Later, news of a fatality emerged. The body was found under the rubble.
Market workers told a Fontanka correspondent that it all started on the second floor. “Something sparked there, and quickly everything was covered in fog and smoke,” said one eyewitness. The interviewees don't know what exactly happened. They said the market administrators immediately evacuated everyone, and people ran outside.
Several times, while the open burning was going on, the sounds of explosions were heard at the site.
The Nevsky District Prosecutor's Office is investigating the circumstances of the fire in the market building. The agency will also conduct a comprehensive assessment of compliance with fire safety laws, occupational health and safety regulations.
“If there are grounds for doing so, a decision will be made regarding the prosecutor's response measures,” the press service of the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office reported.
Specialists from Rospotrebnadzor in St. Petersburg and the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region also responded to the fire scene. They collected air samples from nearby residential buildings, taking into account wind direction, and sent them to a laboratory for testing for pollutants.
The agency will report further on the study's results. “The situation remains under the control of the Interregional Office of Rospotrebnadzor,” the press service added.
Specialists from a mobile chemical and radiometric laboratory are also working at the scene to monitor air quality for harmful substances in the fire area, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported. The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case related to the fire under the article on providing services that do not meet safety requirements.
The two-story market building was constructed in 1982 and underwent renovations between 1999 and 2001. Its area is 6,193 square meters. In the late 1980s, the drama “Intergirl” was filmed there, and in the 1990s, the market gained notoriety as a “drug trafficking hub.”
According to SPARK, the building belonged to the city from 1999 to 2020, and was subsequently transferred to JSC Pravoberezhny Market. To date, the market has housed various grocery stores, a bike shop, a dry cleaner, a honey shop, knife and kitchenware stores, and several marketplace pickup points. In 2024, it generated a five-year record of 90 million rubles in revenue and 27 million rubles in net profit.
The last unscheduled inspection of the building by the Ministry of Emergency Situations was conducted in March 2021 and revealed three violations: the absence of an automatic fire extinguishing system and smoke exhaust ventilation system from the premises, as well as an excessively large fire compartment, which is not equipped with automatic fire protection. Similar violations were recorded during inspections from 2016 to 2019.
