MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - Thirteen people
were killed and another seven injured in a fire that broke out
in a wooden residential building in the Astrakhan Region in
southern Russia, the country's prosecutor's office said on
Sunday.
"The bodies of 13 victims had been recovered and seven
people are in hospital. The efforts to clear the debris are
continuing," spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
The fire in a three-storey residential building in the
village of Molodezhny broke out on Saturday evening and was put
out two hours later. A total of 59 tenants had been evacuated
from the building.
Markin said the building was recognized as structurally
unsafe back in 1997 and its tenants were intended to be
resettled. Investigators are currently carrying out measures to
identify persons responsible for the tragedy, he said.
In a similar incident a week ago, twenty-three people,
most of them elderly persons, died in a fire that destroyed a
wooden care home in the Republic of Komi in northwest Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered on Thursday to
carry out comprehensive inspections of all Russian retirement
homes following the deadly fire at the Komi care facility.
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