
A huge fire broke out at a historic factory in the Russian city of St Petersburg on Monday. The fire has sent clouds of black smoke over the city. As per the emergencies ministry, the fire has broken out on several floors of Nevskaya Manufaktura, a red-brick building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River
The ministry added that forty people had been evacuated and two firefighters had been hospitalised.
The enormous factory, founded as a cloth manufacturer in 1841, was engulfed in flames, AFP journalists at the scene said.
During the Soviet period, the factory was nationalised and run as a state entity. It was privatised in 1992.
In recent years parts of the building continued to operate manufacturing cloth, while others were rented out as office space and some areas had been abandoned.
(With AFP inputs)