At least 53 people were killed when a fire ripped through a busy shopping center in the industrial city of Kemerovo in western Siberia, with many more reported missing, including children.
Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Monday that at least 53 people had died.
Images on Russian television showed thick black smoke pouring out of the Winter Cherry shopping center, which houses shops, restaurants, a sauna, a bowling alley and a multiplex cinema.
TV pictures also showed people jumping from the windows of the mall.
As the new death toll was announced, a source in the local rescue services said many people including children were reported missing, the RIA Novosti agency reported.
The preliminary findings of the Investigative Committee said the fire started around 1100 GMT in one of the cinema halls and destroyed more than 1,000 square meters of the center.
"The roof collapsed in two theaters in the cinema," it said.
Around 120 people had been evacuated from the burning center, rescuers said.
"This shopping center on several floors was packed with people mid-day Sunday. No one knows exactly how many people there were inside when the fire broke out," Alexandre Eremeyev, an official with the local Russian emergency services ministry, earlier said in a statement.
"Where to look for people? How many are there? That has greatly complicated the work of the firefighters," he said, adding that the thick smoke was also hindering their task.
Some 300 firefighters and rescue personnel were rushed to the scene and the fire was later brought under control, local emergency officials said.
Russia's minister of emergency services, Vladimir Putchkov has gone to Kemerovo, RIA Novosti said.
