WATCH Smoke Rise Over Burning Shopping Mall in St. Petersburg

Preliminary data suggests that the fire in the Lenta supermarket in St. Petersburg may have erupted due to an electrical malfunction, an emergency services representative told Sputnik.

After more than 800 people were evacuated from the Lenta supermarket in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Saturday morning, the roof of the building collapsed on an area of 3,800 square metres.

READ MORE: Mass Evacuation in St. Petersburg Shopping Mall Due to Major Blaze

Although the emergency services managed to localise the fire and there are no immediate reports of injuries or casualties, the blaze rapidly covered an area of about 5,000 sq. metres. One social media user managed to capture the smoke from the fire rising over the city:

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#лента #пожар

A post shared by @ stansmolin on Nov 9, 2018 at 10:45pm PST