Talk:Vladivostok fire witnesses dispute official death toll of nine, claim at least 50

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Special investigation services wants more info from news.vl.ru[edit]

Goverment services wants additional info about people who posts comments on news.vl.ru (IP, logs and other secret info) Here is attention message from news.vl.ru http://news.vl.ru/vlad/2006/01/23/comment/

Thank you for the contribution. This news has been incorporated to another article: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Vladivostok:_Witnesses_of_Fire_Under_Investigation --Svobo 09:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open letter from firemen to Putin[edit]

Here is published open letter http://news.vl.ru/vlad/2006/01/23/openletter/ Please translate.

It's not relevant to the "death toll" theme of this article. In the letter the firemen ask Putin why the investigation has stuck on the "skape goat" A.Lobanov, who inspected the building last year, but does not investigate a propriator and tennant of the bank offices, where the fire occured. --Svobo 09:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another arrests[edit]

I have found the dossier about that tragedy. It is located on information agency REGNUM - http://www.regnum.ru/dossier/735.html

http://www.regnum.ru/news/576755.html - here news about another two arrests.

Please translate it.

Copy from there (in Russian):

Работа одного из отделений Сбербанка во Владивостоке парализована

Во Владивостоке по делу о пожаре, в результате которого погибли 9 человек, арестованы еще 2 человека.

Как сообщил 23 января на пресс-конференции прокурор края Александр Аникин, старшему инспектору отделения Сбербанка Виктору Ханикову предъявлено обвинение в нарушении правил пожарной безопасности, повлекшее по неосторожности смерть 2-х или более лиц. Позже прокуратура края предъявила обвинение в халатности начальнику отдела государственного пожарного надзора Сергею Лузгану.

Ранее ИА REGNUM сообщало, что по этому делу были арестованы управляющая отделением Сбербанка Людмила Феофанова и старший инспектор Госпожарназдора Алексей Лобанов.

Пожар возник 16 января на VIII этаже 9-этажного здания, в котором расположены отделение Сбербанка и десятки коммерческих офисов. Следствие установило, что в помещениях, занимаемых банком, не были разработаны планы эвакуации людей в случае пожара. Одной из причин гибели людей явилось наличие решеток на лестничных пролетах здания.

Между тем, 23 января во Владивостоке произошел инцидент, косвенно связанный с пожаром. В одном из отделений Сбербанка неизвестные выбили окна и написали на стене "16 января". Работа банковского отделения парализована.

Here is in English http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2824569&PageNum=0 --Svobo 10:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Witnesses under persecution?[edit]

BBC reports on 21 Jan Here is http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/newsid_4635000/4635464.stm a post with a statement of a Chief of Vladivostok City Police Department (translation below):


Участники митинга были уверены, что власти скрывают истинное количество жертв и при этом ссылались на интернет-сайт. "Мы проверяли опубликованные там сообщения, но ни одно из них не подтвердилось. Удалось разыскать двух авторов сообщений. Один уже отказался от того, что там написал, второй скрывается", - рассказал начальник УВД Владивостока полковник Николай Панченко.


The meeting participants are sure, that the authorities hide a true number of victims and refer to the web-site. We verified the publised messages, but none of them was confirmed. We have detected the two authors of the messages. One of them has already refused from everythig he wrote there, another is still hiding out", - the Chief of Vladivostok City Police Department colonel Nikolay Panchenko said.


Nothing to wonder it's usual practice to take "promise not to disclose" in the cases of terrist act or so. Usually they take it from the persons who know secret data, etc. Svobo 04:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the translation above, are the "authors" the same persons who made posts "to the web-site" that were read by meeting participants who later raised hell with Panchenko and other authorities when discussing the incident? If true, then the authors refuse to identify themselves. -Edbrown05 04:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the authorities are pursueing the authors. Only two, and as the officer said - for the testimony about "number of dead bodies". I searched through the hundreds of messages from the douzen of sources, it was at least 3 messages about the dead bodies. One is from a bank employee, a justice department, who was getting out of the fire and has seen the dead bodies inside the building. She told about "up to 70". Second, from a nightguard, who worked that night in a neighbour building and has seen "how they have been loading the dead bodies all night long". Third, the employee of the building maintenance team, who noticed how they hid the dead (or wounded?) bodies during the fire. Also, there were the messages from people who have heard about "hidden dead bodies" from relatives or friends, who a) work in police and have been loading the dead bodies that night, and b) who has visited the building by occasion and by this has seen the dead bodies loading. Svobo 05:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Or rather, one author "refused from everything he wrote", which in English could be taken to mean the author would not affirm the accuracy of what was written. -Edbrown05 04:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1) he said what posts he wrote are his lie and 2) he said what he doesn't write this posts - there is equivocal meaning (double meaning).
This attempt to clarify has not been helpful for me. -Edbrown05 05:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to keep the meaning as closer to the original as possible. In Russian the statement can be understood as the author denies\rejects\refuse what he said before, a sort of "to take his words back". Svobo 06:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Breaking news[edit]

Feofanova Ludmila arrested! Here is a post about arrest.

Below is a copy-paste of that post. Please, translate it and insert in article.

Done. I used a more concise version of the same post on http://www.svobodanews.ru/News/129228.html But probably it need some "re-englishing" Svobo 05:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In Vladivostok, Lyudmila Feofanova, CEO of the "Primorskaya" branch of "Sberbank", has been arrested in conjunction with case of the fire which has killed 9 and seriousely wounded 17 last Monday.

The Office of Public Prosecutor accuses L.Feofanova on failure to provide the bank with a fire-prevention system.

Earlier a responsible fire inspector Alexey Lobanov has been arrested on charge of negligence.

The fire in a building where the branch of the SberBank has been located, has occured on January, 16th. According to preliminary data, the reason brought the bank's employees to death were rough infringements of fire prevention rules.

Во Владивостоке по делу о пожаре арестована управляющая приморским отделением Сбербанка, ей предъявлено обвинение

Владивосток. 22 января. ИНТЕРФАКС - Прокуратура Приморского края предъявила обвинение управляющей Приморским отделением Сбербанка России Людмиле Феофановой.

Как сообщила в воскресенье "Интерфаксу" старший помощник прокурора края Ирина Номоконова, Л.Феофанова обвиняется в совершении преступления, предусмотренного частью третьей статьи 219 Уголовного кодекса РФ - "нарушение правил пожарной безопасности, совершенное лицом, на котором лежала обязанность по их соблюдению, повлекшее по неосторожности смерть двух или более лиц".

По словам И. Номоконовой, в ходе расследования уголовного дела по факту пожара в здании "Промстройниипроект", унесшего жизни девяти человек, прокуратурой установлено, что Л.Феофанова, как руководитель организации, не создала в помещениях, занимаемых банком, систему пожарной безопасности, направленную на предотвращение пожара и спасение людей. Допущенные ей нарушения правил пожарной безопасности повлекли тяжкие последствия - гибель девяти человек и причинение вреда здоровью 17 сотрудникам банка при пожаре, произошедшем 16 января.

"Решением федерального суда Ленинского района в субботу в отношении Л.Феофановой была избрана мера пресечения в виде содержания под стражей", - отметила представитель прокуратуры.

Another link with more information - http://primamedia.ru/news/show/?id=5272

This article should not be delayed[edit]

Many people in Russia need your help. Please finish and publish this article as soon as possible. Today was the meeting with average 500 people (it is very big number for such town) in Vladivostok. Only one local media (Vesti) report about meeting. We don't know about president and his possession of meeting, but we know that west side of Russia is know nothing. Information is spreaded with Internet and other uncontrolled media. We need more attention from other people. Please finish and publish this article as soon as possible. GD 15:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please note, this article is not about the fire itself, but about how the Russian officials and mass-media react to the tragedy. The article reveals the non-official but nevetheless very trustworthy information from the eyewitnesses. So please don't consider it as a duplicate of any other article. Thnx.

From anonymous visitor: I can't buy it, is Edbrown05 sincere ? Emergency crew could not come near the building since parked cars were in their way, so he says. I (1) doubt this can be true, and even it was true, I would ask, what disabled emergency crue to move the cars to free the way? Physics (2) ? Ethics (3)? Law (4). Let's look. 1. Emergency crue succeded to come near one wing of building. Then they could turn and move along the wall to come to another wing. It is highly improbable that cars was ordered so to divide the building into two sections. 2. It is next to impossible to believe that several trucks could not move single little car, then another one, freeing the way. 3. It is impossible to consider unethical saving human lives, even if it requires to move several cars 10 meters aside. Note that car owners were caught in the fire and they would not value possible scratches on their cars more than the lives of their own. 4. There is a law in Russia, that claims that in critycal situation, where human's life is in danger, anyone is authorised to do actions required to save that person's life. Refusing to do this and living person without help is, in turn, a crime. I believe every country has a law like this. If at dead night You broke into some shop and take the goods, you are thief. If at dead night You found a person bleeding with knife cuts, then You must broke into medical shop and take bandage to stop blood. More so, it is not crime to move someone's car in practive. In Moscow there is much more cars, than parking sites. And if You chanced to park the car somewhere wrong, there is a great chance that some commercial lorry named "evacuator" would take Your car and move somewhere. Later You would dial one police department after another and ask if they know what commercial company (there are several) had taken You car. Then You would pay them for their work as much as they say, or You would never drive Your car again. That is lawful everyday, with no emergency nor danger. And You said when fire was killing humans, law prohibited moving cars 10 meters aside???

Understood, but weren't there a lot of parked cars that blocked emergency crews from responding with ladders on the side of the building where people were captured on video jumping from the building? -Edbrown05 06:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Media reports, as sources, that are written in Russian are not understood. (... by this user) I'm sure there is a lot of controversy surrounding this disaster/accident. Without knowledge of your or photographer's user history here at Wikinews, it would be irresponsible to accept on the "say so" of yours that 70, not 9, died in the fire. -Edbrown05 07:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have edited the article about how the firmen acted, trying to cover different points of view. As to the number of the victims, we rely on report of the nightguards of the building who have seen how the dozens of corps have been transported from the building during the night 16\17 Jan. The rather independent news website NEWSRU.com refers to the same source, but they indicate "more than 50" and it's almost the same as "up to 70" in the situation of the official lie. No problem, we could correct to "more then 50". Anyway, you could use any on-line Rus->En translator to check the content on http://www.newsru.com/russia/19jan2006/vladivostok.html http://lenta.ru/news/2006/01/21/fire/ (this web-edition also reports about "much more then 9") -Svobo

As a matter of style, Wikinews does not make a sensation over the claim in this report which reads that firemen evacuated bank management employees from a section of the building where the fire was not yet present, yet implies that the other side of the building, where people were jumping out of windows, was ignored. Is that true? Be real. -Edbrown05 07:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's why we report about it. That's why all Russia talks about it. It's outrageous inhumanity, that those people commited - firemen should rescue, but they were drunk, they should rescue people in the fire first, but they had an order to rescue the senior management of the bank! That's reality in that country! That's why the federal authority are blocking the truth, because it's outrageous even for Russia. Pls take a look at the photo yourselves: http://fire.zloe.net/images/dleko.jpg (left word is "ladder", right one is "fire". and you can see the people - the young girls, some of them are the young mothers - are dropping down!) -Svobo

I understand in idea, but not execution or follow through about a translation for the sources you list for this story. Purely my opinion speaking now in this moment... I keep (on occasion) hearing on civil services issues this "drunk" theme coming out of Russia. Is public service and intoxication that bad? -Edbrown05 08:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Only thing related to authorities are coveres in this article. "Drunk" theme and total corruption of public services are a common place for the years, since early 90th. But there are some more reports, not less shocking. When fire started the management has forced the young bank workers to collect the paper documents and put them into fire-proof boxes. They've been doing that for almost an hour, and only when open fire started to break into the offices they decided to put work aside and run away from there. Also there are several reports about the looting during the fire and, probably, after. The investigations on that cases are already launched by the prosecutor. Here is another pic with the plan of building (click to enlarge) http://www.animasha.com/bforum/forum.php?bzk=almaru&board=1480 -Svobo
So do you you think if Wikinews publishes this story, it would not be wrong for the assertions in the article that firemen were more concerned for people who were not most threatened by the fire at the time those emergency crews responded. -Edbrown05 09:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Today a civil meeting has been held in Vladivostok, at 12 pm, around 300 were present. Slogans were "Who will tell us the truth?", "We want to know the truth!", "Our lives cost nothing!", "Authorities should respond!", "Firemen are those who should be set on fire!" There are some photoes http://vlfire.ruwow.ru/forum/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=14 and http://vlfire.ruwow.ru/forum/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=3 (here is the source and some links to official news websites http://vlfire.ruwow.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=51 ).

I'm sure that it would not be wrong to cover how the firemen has handled the fire, if it provokes such protests. -Svobo

And that the Russian media seeks to hide the true magnitude of the fire casualties. -Edbrown05 09:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Russian media are under tight pro-kremlin control for the last 4-5 years. And if we compare the coverage of different events- profitabe for them and not - the different media strategy become apperent. The media tends to hide everything that reveals a failure of the authorities to complete their public duties. -Svobo

title suggestion[edit]

suitably with the POV occuring in this article: "Fireman hosed in rescue effort, lives lost"... sorry so ruthlessly american. -Edbrown05 08:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

probably, the point of the article is to cover the discrepancy in the official information and the testimonies of those who's lucky enough to survive. but, sure, the title should be amended. -Svobo
so sorry, it seems something goes wrong with renaming, a lot of redirects. is the current title out of wikinews approach? -Svobo
I think the not 9 part is POV...unless there is proof of that and or quotes...maybe there is...i might have missed that. Jason Safoutin 12:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
9 are the bank employees only, young girls http://www.fesb.ru/fesb/content/about/news/1137539555 and nothing about those who have been killed inside the building and were the bank's visitors, etc. At least two witnesses have reported about the dead bodies transportation, more then 30, that occurs by the night. But the Russian mass-media repeat only about those 9, the bank stuff (whose deaths whould be easy to proof by their relatives). the comparision is nesseccary to show off the possible lie of the authority, that's why "not 9" is in the title. sure we can use quotes. -Svobo 14:50 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Well I think those quotes and statements need to be validated. I am not rejecting this article and I am very interested as to whats going on as I have NOT heard a single thing about this on American Media. No suprise really. BUT with that said, we also have to be fair and balanced. I am NTO suggesting those statements are not true nor am I suggesting only nine died. But you NEED to back up your claims really. If those are individual quotes you should get names. Or state something along the lines of...they wanted to remain anonomyous... or something to that nature...But until then, I think the title MIGHT be a POV. But I will NOT be the one to tag the article. Jason Safoutin 14:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedit[edit]

I've done a copyedit of the first three paragraphs (more a rewrite). After that point it gets a bit unclear what are quotes from witnesses, and what are POV items from the original contributors. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the last contributor I was able to progress a little further through copyediting this. But starting at the "Women shouted they had children and that it's no way for them to die" bit is where the problems currently exist. Rather than working on making the article longer, can we have a discussion on the talk page to try and address the NPOV concerns? I'm aware people in Russia don't seem to have a media organisation to look to for an example of the concept, but if you look at the BBC's news site and aim for something you think they'd publish then you're on the right track. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed this fragment "Women shouted they had.." Brian, could you give some advice on "the NPOV concerns"? Svobo 17:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As you'd notice, I removed links to the websites. They'll need to go in the sources, or within the article as "Witness X said on the http://www.example.com site, blah blah blah...". Probably need to drop the exact timestamps and refer to a post on site x on January y. Only link to the site once, after that adopt a common name (eg drop the www and .ru bits) for the site. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the helping hand, Brian. All you do is really exellent! At the moment I'm searching for some more of the original quotes of witnesses and translating them. Svobo 16:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Possible POV's
  • 1. "possibly the phone began to melt"...we should not speculate.

Thats all I have an issue with...other than the really bad english. Jason Safoutin 17:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it's removed. Really sorry for English! Svobo 18:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because I do not know russian I do not want to re edit it for english becasue I am afraid I might change the words around and I know how sensitive this article and the story is. I see no other issues other than the english translation. If someone can edit for that then I will say its ready to publish. Jason Safoutin 18:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you could do this I would really appreciate it.. I didn't sleep for 2 days.. doing all that, and for the moment .. it will delay to find a native speaker.Svobo 18:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How is this? let me know... Jason Safoutin 20:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
a really-really great job! i understand that never knew English before! i just insert my 2 cents - there was an only word missed in the text, i've put "confirmed" in "Russian media later (a word missed) that 7 to 9..." Jason, thanks! So should we publish it now? Svobo 20:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

I do apologize for unpublishing this article, however Wikinews has a policy of requiring that factual statements be verifiable *in english*. This article relies heavily on Russian-language sources, which are likely the only sources currently available for much of the local content. Without being able to verify these sources it is not possible to verify the reporting is from a neutral point of view and accurate. - Amgine | talk en.WN 22:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just added a bunch of sources in english. Jason Safoutin 22:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mangled[edit]

I have, in good faith, tried to contribute towards this story. However some of the recent edits leave it in a state where I can't help move it towards deserving a published status, I would urge contributors to read a number of our articles to see how we present things, and – more importantly – our NPOV policy. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried my best to do the english. I knew it was not going to be good. But tried. Also I did NOT add the publish tag. Nor did I remove the NPOV. I do want to see this news get out and its a shame none of the american netowkrs say a single thing. Jason Safoutin 22:14, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a language barrier that is difficult to leap over for this story. Wikinews does do original reporting (for which this report would qualify), and also has accredited writers. With this report, the fact that there is little in the english language to support the main thrust of the article, and lacking a history of creditable contributions to this site by the main contributor, I don't see much future for this article being published. -Edbrown05 09:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how the Russian contributors can move it forward, but for it to qualify for Original Reporting I'd suggest adding a section to this page for it, cite links to the sites in Russia you're lifting quotes from, and paste the Russian and the translation. It also needs a bit of background on each site you want to use because those of us who're forced to use machine translations cannot easily work out the political leaning or affiliations of the sites. That information would be needed in the article to establish how credible the story is, or if a particular agenda is being pursued. For example, does the site regularly level misreporting accusations at the government? --Brian McNeil / talk 10:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. The message below has been copied on hundreds of sites, forumes and blogs. I have located the original http://www.forum.ptr-vlad.ru/showthread.php?t=1387&page=7&pp=10 This is a Forum of Primorskoye TV and Radio (Форум Приморского Телевидения и Радио in Russian, "Primorskoye" is name of region, where Vladivostok city is situated) I consider this one as one of the most trustworthy testimonies, the author is employee of the building maintenance taem.

(in Russian, original) 7.Погибло более 13 человек(это минимум,который я успел зафиксировать,не считая погибшими всех кто прыгал) 8.примерно около 8 из них погибли со стороны ДНС,видя внизу три трупа своих товарищей и тем не менее прыгая от безысходности…печально. 9.Со стороны ДНС 40 минут стояло всего 3 машины пожарных. 10.Трупы прятали внутри(а я как работник все нутро знаю и видел(подсмотрел))чтоб потом,как и окозалось,занизить число трупов.

(in English) 7. More than 13 were killed [inside](that's the least I've noticed, not to consider those who've dropped down) 8. around 8 of them were killed on a side of DNS, looking at the three already dead on the ground, nevertheless they went through the windows without hope to be rescued... so sad! 9. There were only 3 firemen trucks on the side of DNS, for 40 minutes. 10. They [firemen] were hidding the dead bodies inside (and I work at this building and I know its [inner] layout well - to declare afterward, as it become clear, a less number of the dead bodies." Translated by A.Kopylov. Is it enough to qualify as Original reporting? -- Svobo 05:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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