Forty-one children are known to have died in a huge fire that engulfed a shopping centre in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on Sunday afternoon.
The fire ripped through the upper levels of the shopping centre, where a cinema complex and a children play area were located.
The deadly toll was exacerbated by failures in safety standards. A fire alarm system was believed to have been switched off for the last seven days before the incident due to a malfunction, and a security guard did not activate the public address system to urge people to evacuate the facility.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the area today.