Saint Petersburg, Russia: A spectacular fire gutted a historic factory in Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg on Monday, sending clouds of black smoke over the former imperial capital.
With the fire still raging Monday evening, the emergencies ministry said the body of one firefighter who had died had been recovered, while two others were hospitalised in serious condition with burns covering 40 to 50 percent of their bodies.
Forty people had been evacuated from the factory and a nearby hotel was shuttered and its occupants relocated.
The ministry said that the fire had broken out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River.
The enormous factory was engulfed in flames which spread to nearby trees, AFP journalists at the scene said, adding that the building was surrounded by fire trucks and several ambulances.
The inferno spread to an area of about 10,000 square metres (107,640 square feet) and a large part of the roof had collapsed.
As night fell nearly 350 firefighters were still battling the blaze, with reinforcements from army fire-fighting helicopters.
The cause of the fire which erupted around 1:30 pm (10:30 GMT) was not immediately known.
Listed by the Saint Petersburg city government as a cultural heritage site, the building was home to one of Russia’s largest textile companies in the second half of the 19th century, the Fontanka local news website reported.
It said the company, the Thornton Woollen Mill Company, was founded by British citizen James George Thornton and his sons, and that its products won the highest award at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.
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