The cause of the blaze, which has consumed around 1,500 square meters, is still unknown
© Sputnik / Aleksey Filippov
A major fire broke out at the Izvestia Hall building on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow around 5 am on Thursday, according to media reports. Multiple fire brigades have been deployed to the scene.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but at least one person has reportedly gone missing – his colleagues are unable to contact him at the moment and fear he could be inside of the building.
The fire started in the inner yard of the building and quickly spread, with the nearby Residence bar and Lookin Rooms nightclub completely destroyed by the conflagration, according to local media. The blaze has not been contained, as flames continue to rip through the building.
Due to the fire, three out of four lanes along Tverskaya Street towards the Garden Ring and 1 lane out of 4 along Bolshoy Putinkovsky Lane are blocked to traffic.
Some 70 potentially dangerous gas cylinders might be stored inside of the building and may explode if exposed to fire, sources say.
The Izvestia Hall is a popular event venue, and just a ten-minute walk from the Kremlin. Constructed between 1925 and 1927, the building housed the printing house and editorial office of the newspaper “Izvestia” for nearly 85 years, until it moved to a new site in 2011. The reconstruction of the historical part of the building was completed in 2018.
