A criminal case has been initiated under the article of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus "Violation of labor protection rules" following the explosion at the distillery in Lyntupy.
The emergency services received a report of an incident on the afternoon of March 28 from an employee of the enterprise. Upon the arrival of the fire brigade from the local Ministry of Emergency Situations unit, fire was observed on the first floor inside the five-story reinforced concrete building of the plant.
As previously reported on the official website of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Belarus, an explosion followed by a fire occurred in the rectification workshop. As a result, partial collapse and displacement of stair flights were observed along the technological columns at a height of 10 meters, windows were blown out, and cracks formed in the wall from the first to the fifth floors. According to initial data, four people received injuries of varying severity. Among them is a young woman who died later that evening in the local central district hospital, where all the injured were taken by ambulance.
At the same time, the official representative of the Investigative Committee Department for the Vitebsk Region, Inna Gorbacheva, reported that a criminal case has been initiated under Article 306: violation of labor protection rules, in connection with the explosion at the structural unit "Lyntupy Distillery" of OJSC "Vitebsk Distillery "Pridvinye". A group from the central office has been dispatched to the scene, and the department for the investigation of crimes against individuals and public security, whose employees specialize in investigating such criminal cases, is working there. The causes of the explosion will be known after forensic examinations, including fire-technical and explosive-technical expertise.