Late in the evening of February 17 a tragedy occurred at School No. 304 in Kyiv. The explosion was reported to the Fire Department at around 10:30 p.m. The fire was extinguished at 12:15 a.m.. Nine persons were retrieved from the debris with varying degrees of burns and wounds. A 19-year-old girl was found dead, presumably killed by the explosion.
The Day’s reporters on the scene witnessed rescue operations on the school premises involving 180 specialists from the Emergency Management Ministry and firemen.
Petro Topal, deputy head of the Leninhradsky District militia precinct shared his version of the accident: “The Kyivsky Dim limited liability partnership made repairs on the premises but breached basic fire safety regulations. They were instructed to install an air exhaust and fire extinguishers on the leased premises. The firm’s management, particularly sales manager Serhiy Martyniuk, are now under arrest here at the precinct. I think that the school administration is also guilty. They had to foresee a situation like this, the more so that the production workshop was under the school canteen and gym, places usually crowded by children.”
Oleh Venzhyk, head of the press center of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Chief Fire Department, said the school basement was used for the production of furniture and varnishing works, which is strictly forbidden. “No one can tell now what actually happened,” he added. “There is a special commission at work, presided over by the mayor.” Mr. Venzhyk also noted the problem of financing fire brigades. The new budget program stipulates the disbanding of 100 fire brigades in Ukraine, meaning 3,500 firefighters. “So where do we expect the next explosion and who will fight the fire? Will the firemen get there in time?” His questions sounded almost rhetorical.
Petro Yarosh, father of a ninth grade boy from that school, told The Day : “We were lucky it blew up after school hours. Otherwise there could have been some 500 children in the cafeteria. Such commercial production structures must be banished from all schools. I visited that furniture shop only recently. The place was a shambles with no fire safety arrangements in sight.”
The special commission was sitting in the packed room of a nearby day care center. Serhiy Dromshyn, head of the Leninhradsky District state administration, said several more persons could still be somewhere under the debris. Stanislav Stashevsky, deputy mayor, immediately ordered a “complete check” of all schools and other children’s institutions. All interviewed by The Day agreed that fire risk production must be banished from all such institutions.
Mykhailo Korniyenko, head of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s City Directorate, told Interfax Ukraine that preliminary estimates point to a leak of bottled propane as the cause of the blast.
