According to preliminary data, the large fire that occurred early Saturday morning in an underpass in downtown capital city Yerevan was due to the carelessness of the homeless.

Nana Gndoyan, spokesperson of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Armenia, told about the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

She noted that even though an investigation is underway to determine the cause of this fire, preliminary information suggests that the homeless had burned the household waste at this underpass, and this had caused the fire.

The tunnel area adjacent to this underpass had been closed, since construction work was to be done there.

As reported earlier, the Ministry of Emergency Situations received a call, on Saturday at 5:33am.

t was informed that there was fire in an idle department store at an underpass in downtown Yerevan.

Initially, two fire squads were dispatched to the scene. 

But, subsequently, three more fire squads and a hospital physician on duty were dispatched.

It was found out that about 200 square meters of household waste, which was accumulated at the idle booths, was on fire.

The fire was extinguished at 6:18am.