A 50,000-square-meter warehouse of a well-known European e-commerce platform was burned! An employee admitted to arson

Recently, a fire broke out in a large warehouse near St. Petersburg of Wildberries, a well-known Russian e-commerce platform .

According to foreign media reports, the warehouse has a total area of ​​70,000 square meters, and the affected area is as high as 50,000 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 10 football fields. When the fire broke out, more than 1,600 employees were working in the warehouse. According to eyewitnesses at the scene, the fire initially covered only 1,000 square meters, but it quickly spread in just over 20 minutes.

Although Wildberries issued a statement saying that there were no casualties, according to Russian media reports, due to multiple false fire reports, the warehouse's fire alarm was turned off at the time, which resulted in the workers being unable to be evacuated in time during the fire.

In addition, there were media reports that a main exit of the warehouse was closed and employees had to go through another smaller exit to survive.

While people were speculating about the cause of the fire, according to the latest report on January 16 (Russian time), a Wildberries warehouse employee admitted that he was responsible for the fire.

It is reported that the employee had "warned" his colleagues in the warehouse employee chat room on December 27, 2023 that a fire was about to break out. After the fire broke out, he sent a message in the employee chat room saying that the fire was caused by his arson and then logged out of his account. The workers who participated in the chat have reported the news to the accident investigation department.

In addition to the possible clues to the cause of the fire, another "good news" is that Wildberries has begun to pay compensation to the sellers affected, and the first batch of compensation has been successfully paid.

According to Wildberries' statement, the platform will calculate the compensation amount based on the average retail price of the goods minus standard costs (market commission and logistics costs), and pay compensation to sellers in stages.

The relevant Russian authorities defined the fire as a Level 5 accident, which is also the highest level of accidents in Russia. Wildberries is one of the largest online e-commerce platforms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Last year, it was downloaded 29.7 million times in Russia, making it the most downloaded application in Russia. According to the Royal Bank of Canada, Wildberries' losses in the fire could reach 11 billion rubles (about 126 million U.S. dollars).

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