Barabashovo market in Kharkiv: emergency services try to prevent fire from spreading to residential buildings

Olena Roschina – Friday, 18 March 2022, 07:43

As of 07:00 on 18 March, operation continues to extinguish the fire caused by the shelling of Barabashovo market, one the biggest trading hubs in Kharkiv, on 17 March.

Source: Ukrainian State Emergency Service update at 07:00

Details: Different parts of the market caught on fire on 17 March in the wake of the shelling. Around 14:00, emergency and rescue services received the first reports of the fire. The Ukrainian State Emergency Service currently has 21 fire appliances and around 100 personnel deployed at the scene.

Trading pavilions are still on fire, and two residential buildings have been damaged.

The emergency services are directing all their efforts towards containing the fire and preventing its spread to the residential area and other facilities. In total, more than 10 residential buildings have been saved.

As the firefighters worked on the scene, the Russian troops fired again, inflicting numerous shrapnel wounds on two emergency service workers. They were immediately hospitalised. One of these emergency service workers died in hospital.

At 17:30, the fire caused by the shelling of a school in the town of Merefa, in the Kharkiv region, was extinguished.

Over the course of the day, emergency service personnel attended 42 fires and worked to clear the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Search and rescue operations and debris removal also took place in the Kyivsky, Shevchenkivsky, and Nemyshlyansky neighbourhoods of Kharkiv, and in the Kharkiv district of the region.

State Emergency Service units attended fires throughout the day at high-rise apartment buildings and private houses, commercial and other facilities. Fires broke out in the Shevchenkivsky, Kyivsky, Nemyshlyansky, and Moscovsky neighbourhoods of Kharkiv, as well as in the Kharkiv and the Izium districts of the region.

Bomb disposal units from the State Emergency Service attended 30 sites where detonated and unexploded ordnance had been found.