Kemerovo starts demolishing what's left of the shopping mall where 60 people burned to death in March

Construction crews in Kemerovo have started tearing down the burned wreckage of the “Winter Cherry” shopping center, where a fire on March 25 killed 60 people, including 40 children. The mall’s primary owner, a local confectionery works, donated the premises to the city, buying out the minority shareholders that objected to the demolition. The city plans to open a public square on the grounds by September 1.

After the fire in Kemerovo, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry announced a series of nationwide inspections. In mid-April, the agency said it had discovered fire-safety violations at half of the shopping centers it inspected. These inspections have led to the temporary closure of almost a third of all the shopping centers in Russia, according to the newspaper Kommersant.

Almost half of the closed malls are relatively small shopping areas built or last remodeled in the 1990s. Sources told the newspaper that the closures could cost businesses more than half a billion rubles ($7.9 million) a month in lost revenues.