A few days before the fire authorities were rounding up migrants at the huge complex to go serve in Ukraine. Cause of the fire is unknown but arson is suspected. The sprawling complex was over 100,000 sq/m or 25 acres.
Source: The Telegraph
A huge fire has destroyed a large warehouse outside St Petersburg used by Wildberries, the online retailer known as “Russia’s Amazon”.
Up to 1,600 people were working in the building when it caught alight early on Saturday morning, reports said.
There were no casualties, but the Tass news agency reported that many workers had to run for their lives because fire alarms had reportedly been turned off.
Video showed dozens of people fleeing down fire escapes. In one video, shot inside the warehouse, flames engulf rows of shelves as people run away.
“The roof is falling in! Get out! Get out quickly!” a man can be heard shouting in the video. No alarm sounds in the footage.
Video shot from a passenger jet flying overhead shows flames gutting the warehouse, which was roughly the size of 10 football pitches, and thick black smoke billowing into the sky.
Some Twitter reactions.
The whole south of St Petersburg is under unimaginable smoke from the fire on Wildberries warehouse. The fire has already spread on 50,000 square meters.
A few days before that, Russian law enforcers were doing raids on these warehouses, looking for migrants who are detaining… pic.twitter.com/BadDJddfhH— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) January 13, 2024
Russia being Russia, workers were strip-searched after every shift. Even with the fire, security checked workers before they were allowed to leave, necessitating some to jump from windows to escape the blaze.
Russia: As the Wildberries warehouse was on fire in St. Petersburg, security was initially forcing all fleeing employees trying to exit the building to go through strip searches to prevent theft. https://t.co/vMFuaPh9F7 pic.twitter.com/SdBt0Pd04E
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) January 13, 2024
And a video smuggled out from the same facility last year, strip searches after work.
