The number of victims in the deadly Dec. 4 Odesa College fire continues to grow as police open investigations into several unresolved fire safety violations.
Many of the victims were young students attending Odesa College.
Rescuers recovered three bodies on Dec. 7, and two more people were found dead on the morning of Dec. 8, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES) reported.
Sergiy Shatokhyn, a fire rescuer who was in a medically induced coma, died at an Odesa hospital on the evening on Dec. 7. He fell down a turntable ladder when a student jumped on him from a window of the burning building, Odesa Channel 7 reported.
Local news also reported that 16-year-old student Kyrylo Trofymchyk was among the victims.”I heard other children were gasping and screaming on the phones ‘Mommy, I love you,” his mother said.
About 30 people are in city hospitals with injuries. Rescuers continue to search for the eight missing, but there is little chance they will find them alive.
“It’s hard to say, but there’s no hope,” said Oleksandr Krytsky, deputy head at SES in Odesa Oblast.
Ukraine announced a national day of mourning on Dec. 8.
“Let this tragedy be a lesson for all officials, for all citizens of Ukraine. We will pray for the souls of the dead,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In 2014, SES in Odesa Oblast found several violations at the college such as flammable plastic panels in the corridors and no proper fire alarm.
“The college directorate was then fined. After that, the building was not properly inspected,” said Viktor Fedorchuk, chief of the main directorate of the SES in Odesa Oblast.
Odesa police have opened a new investigation and spoken to some 150 people.
According to Sergiy Shayhet, head of the investigative directorate of the National Police in Odesa Oblast, two reports of suspicion of fire safety violations are being prepared and will be forwarded to the Odesa Prosecutor’s Office.
“It’s sad when people die at the front. But it’s twice as sad when people die in a peaceful city, in the daytime, as a result of someone’s miscalculations or criminal negligence,” said Zelensky.
“We will work so that won’t happen again.”
