Moscow shopping centre fire: At least one dead in second deadly blaze at Russian mall in as many weeks

Russian investigators open criminal case into the fire

At least one person has died following a fire at the Perseus shopping centre in the west of Moscow.

Video on social media showed thick black smoke rising from the blue mall building. According to multiple reports, the blaze began in a toys stockroom on the third floor, before spreading to the roof of the building. Three hundred people were evacuated.

Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into the fire, which fire crews succeeded in putting out on Wednesday afternoon.

The investigating committee said it would look into whether the fire had been caused by negligence.

It comes less than two weeks after a major fire at a shopping centre in Kemerovo, Siberia, killed 64 people, most of them children.

On Sunday, the Kremlin said the governor of the Siberian region where that fire took place had resigned.

The statement said Aman Tuleyev had offered his resignation and that it was accepted by the president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Tuleyev had headed the Kemerovo region for more than 20 years.