Massive fire at Moscow business centre sends 4 to hospital

Moscow, June 3 (PTI/AP): A massive fire at a Moscow business centre led to four people, including a top emergency official, getting rushed to a hospital Friday, Russian authorities said.

Emergency officials engaged 180 firefighters, dozens of vehicles and three helicopters to combat the fire in the west of Russia’s capital.

Sergei Zheltov, the head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Moscow branch, suffered a heart attack while directing the efforts to combat the blaze. A firefighter and people who were inside the building when the blaze broke out were injured.

Russia’s newly appointed emergencies minister, Alexander Kurenkov, went to the site to oversee the firefighting efforts.

His deputy, Ilya Denisov, said about 1,000 people were evacuated from the business center. He told reporters there were no deaths from the blaze and that firefighters had checked the entire building to make sure no one was trapped.

Authorities didn’t name a possible cause of the fire. Russian news reports pointed to a short circuit as likely having ignited the blaze.