A horrifying incident unfolded on Monday as a massive fire and explosion ripped through a petrol station in Dagestan, Russia, claiming the lives of at least 25 individuals and leaving dozens injured.
At 21:40 local time (18:40 GMT), an explosion took place in Makhachkala, the provincial capital city situated on the Caspian Sea coast.
The fire reportedly started at an auto repair shop by a highway in the capital of Dagestan and later spread to a service station nearby. 10 of the 66 people hurt in the incident were in critical condition, according to Viktor Fisenko, deputy head of the Russian Health Ministry.
“Now 66 injured people are in medical institutions in Makhachkala, ten of them are in critical condition,” state news agency TASS quoted Fisenko as saying. According to him, 28 ambulance crews are working at the site.
The number of injured increased to about 66, with 10 of them in serious condition, according to RIA news agency’s citation of Vladimir Fisenko, the deputy minister of health in Russia.
13 of the wounded are reportedly youngsters, according to the Dagestani health ministry. These sobering figures illustrate how many innocent lives were affected by the disaster.
The victims of the explosion will be delivered by a special aircraft of the Ministry of Emergency Situations to Moscow hospitals.
Three children were among the dead, according to doctors , according to the Russian Interfax news agency. According to a statement from the Russian emergency service, it took firefighters more than 3-and-a-half hours to put out the fire, which had grown to cover 600 square meters (715 square yards).
It also mentioned that there was a risk of additional explosions given that the fire had grown to a size of 600 square meters (6,460 square feet).
Unidentified witness described the immediate aftermath of the explosion in the midst of the commotion. The unidentified witness reportedly claimed, “After the explosion, everything fell on our heads, and we couldn’t see anything anymore,” according to the AFP news agency.
“It’s like a war here,” a witness said.
The Ria Novosti news agency posted a video of the building’s early flames and the subsequent big explosion on Telegram.
The regional office of the Russian Investigative Committee announced that a criminal case had been started despite the absence of any reports of any involvement by Ukraine. According to the agency’s website, “Dagestan investigators initiated a criminal case under Article 238 of the Russian Criminal Code (providing services that do not meet the requirements of safety of life or health of consumers, resulting in the death of two or more people by negligence)”.
The Republic of Dagestan is one of 83 constituent parts of the Russian Federation and is the southernmost part of the country. Makhachkala sits around 1,600 km (1,000 miles) from Moscow.
