MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) – Aman Tuleyev, the longtime governor of Russia’s Kemerovo region where a huge mall fire killed at least 64 people, including 41 children last weekend, resigned yesterday.
Tuleyev, who had been at the helm of the key coal-mining region since 1997, said in a video address that he could no longer remain at his post with “such a heavy burden” and added that his resignation was “the only right choice.”
President Vladimir Putin accepted his resignation, the Kremlin said.
The fire ravaged a mall in the industrial city of Kemerovo in western Siberia last Sunday, a tragedy that plunged Russia into shock.
Some parents lost all their children, and the youngest victim was a two-year-old toddler.
