A giant fireball has erupted in St Petersburg with 'huge' flames spotted following a blast in the Russian city.
Large flames and thick plumes of acrid smoke were seen rising into the air over the city on Saturday November 19. As reported by the Mirror, local sources told of the deafening blast on Twitter as they asked whether the flames were caused by a regular fire or another type of explosion.
One wrote: "Is it a fire in St. Petersburg or what? I have never seen or heard such a sound. HUGE flame [...]" A mushroom cloud was spotted in the air in a clip of the blaze.
The incident appears to have happened in a forest area in Vsevolozhsk, a residential area around 24km (15 miles) east of St Petersburg. The explosion, according to state media, was caused by an erupting gas pipeline that runs through the Leningrad region.
The local governor said the fire was under control and there is no threat to local. It comes just hours after a gas leak in a residential building caused an explosion killing at least nine people, including four children, on the Russian island of Sakhalin.
The blast happened on the Russian territory island of Sakhalin, which is in the Pacific Ocean, just north of Japan after a gas cylinder erupted in one of the apartments at around 5.30am local time this morning.
It's understood ambulance crews are working in the courtyard of the house. Meanwhile, according to local site tvzvezda, surgeons are operating on the victims close to the scene.
In the fear that more bodies may be trapped, emergency responders are searching through the rubble and more than 50 people, including volunteers, are involved in the operation.
Reports say 33 people were known to have lived in the building but three are still unaccounted for. Drones and helicopters were reportedly used to help find the victims.
It comes after it emerged Moscow's commanders have secretly moved almost 100 air defence missiles from Belarus to Russia sparking fears of a bigger escalation in Ukraine including whether Vladimir Putin would use a dirty nuke bomb.
Air-freighting scores of S-300 and S-400s is either a precaution against a retaliation from Ukraine for Russia’s recent blitz - or a sign of a much bigger atrocity yet to come.
One Russia expert told the Mirror: “Whatever Russia has in mind to inflict on Ukraine the Kremlin appears to be expecting retaliation on its own soil from Ukraine or the West.
“Analysts believe with these missile moves done so rapidly, just prior to this week’s massive bombardments, the two are interconnected.
“But more ominously they may indicate that worse may yet be to come and they are preparing for a big reaction to this activity.
“There has been talk of a dirty bomb.”
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