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RUSSIA – Clouds of smoke can be seen for miles. A major fire ravaged a warehouse of a major online retail brand in Saint Petersburg, Russia on Saturday, January 13th. The fire did not cause any injuries, said the rescue service, which said more than 270 firefighters were deployed to extinguish the flames.
On Telegram, the Russian Emergencies Ministry stated that the flames affected an area of 70,000 square meters. According to this source, by mid-afternoon the fire that had broken out in the morning had still not been extinguished, but the spread of the fire had been stopped.
Images broadcast by the emergency services and visible in our video at the top of the article, show a huge cloud of black smoke emerging from fiery flames in the middle of a snowy area at dawn. On Telegram, a passenger on a plane flying over the area shared a video showing the extent of the fire from the air.
The warehouse belongs to the company Wildberries, one of the country's leading online sales sites, nicknamed the “Russian Amazon”.
Fires in this type of infrastructure or on industrial sites are common in Russia and are mainly caused by non-compliance with safety standards or outdated equipment.
An online sales expert, Anton Bestougine, confirmed that the warehouse concentrated 8.7% of the Wildberries Group's orders, according to the Russian press agency Ria Novosti. The latter specified on Telegram that customers and resellers would be compensated for the goods lost in the fire.
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