Moscow concert hall accused of locking emergency exits ahead of terrorist attack that killed 137 people

Smoke rises above Crocus City Hall after the terrorist attack on Friday Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Emergency exits in a Moscow concert hall where militants killed 137 people and could not be opened, some survivors say.

Russian media reported that more people may have died from smoke inhalation in Friday's attack than from gunshot wounds.

< p>About 28 bodies are believed to have been found in the toilet, and another 14 in the stairwell near the emergency exit.

Trapped people hiding from the militants reportedly called emergency services and pleaded about salvation as thick smoke filled them. building.

People fleeing the militants discovered that some exits had been blocked in a well-planned attack

Video footage from a survivor on his mobile phone showed people frantically shaking the handles of closed emergency exits as they tried to escape.

«This locked door,” the survivor can be heard telling his companion.

In a well-planned attack, the militants set the building on fire.

The Baza Telegram channel, linked to Russian intelligence services, reported that bodies had accumulated near emergency exits that may have been blocked.

In an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, an unnamed survivor said he was forced to throw himself through the main entrance of the concert hall, from where the militants launched the attack because the fire exits did not open.

“We tried to use the fire escape, but it was closed. People were going up the stairs, going down the stairs, everything was closed,” he said.

A sensitive issue in Russia

The issue of blocked or locked fire exits is a sensitive one in Russia. In 2018, a fire in a shopping center in Siberia killed more than 60 people due to the alarms being turned off and emergency exits being closed.

Crocus City Hall owner Aras Agalarov denied this All fire exits were locked, and several survivors attackers said they escaped through emergency exits.

The attack, claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group, is the deadliest on Russian soil in recent years.

Some families still do not know whether relatives who came to the event, which was attacked by militants on Friday, are alive. The Moscow Ministry of Health reported on Sunday that it had begun identifying the bodies of the dead using DNA analysis, which will take at least two weeks.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Moscow Region published a video on Sunday showing equipment being dismantled from a damaged concert hall hall to provide access to rescuers.