Russian firefighters use helicopter to battle major Moscow building blaze

Around 150 firefighters battled a major blaze on the roof of a Moscow apartment building early on Thursday and used a helicopter to try to douse the flames, news agencies and eyewitnesses said.

About 400 people were evacuated from the nine-storey building on Leninsky Prospekt, a major avenue just to the southwest of the downtown core, a spokesperson for Russia’s federal emergencies ministry told RIA and Tass agencies.

At just before 1 am local time (2200 GMT on Wednesday) the fire covered an area of about 1 000 square meters, the spokesperson added.

At one point a helicopter could be seen dropping water from a large bucket onto the flames.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire.